We’ve written about Unique Madras Buying and selling Firm earlier than. Manish did an article final yr explaining the historical past of the corporate – together with its a lot bigger manufacturing mother or father – and the way it has resurrected hand-loomed madras in India. 

However there’s nothing fairly like seeing it in particular person for the importance to return residence. 

I’m penning this on a Wednesday night, sitting on a balcony of my resort in Chennai (beforehand Madras) having spent the day on the firm’s campus with the founder Prasan and his father, Ranvir (above). We spent the day touring the archive, seeing the weaving, however most importantly speaking to the individuals concerned.

The gentleman under is Pasupathy. He was the technical specialist Prasan employed to get the hand-weaving undertaking off the bottom again in 2016. Pasupathy knew hand-weaving as a result of he was raised in a village the place everybody wove at residence – about 300 properties. They wove within the winter after they couldn’t farm, in an identical option to these weaving Harris Tweed hundreds of miles away. 

Pasupathy was raised by his grandfather, who was a kind of weavers. However the commerce was dying out and Pasupathy went away to review textiles, earlier than changing into a cloth supervisor at an enormous clothes manufacturing unit. 

When he was approached by Unique Madras, nearly 20 years later, the variety of energetic weavers within the village was down to 1. The concept of bringing again this craft in a extra organised setting was due to this fact one thing Pasupathy was enthusiastic about.

“The problem at the start was individuals,” he says. “We may get the looms – they had been nonetheless round – however we couldn’t persuade anybody to return and work for us as a result of it appeared like a dangerous factor to do. Who was making an attempt to start out up this previous commerce once more?” 

Pasupathy and Prasan finally satisfied two girls from the village to return work for them, and as soon as it was began, it was simpler to persuade others. 

“The issue then grew to become certainly one of consistency and velocity,” he says. “It took so lengthy to get individuals used to the rhythms and the patterns.” Their first order was for 400 metres and it took them 150 days. Now they make 150-200m a day.

“My household come down and see what we’re doing right here, they usually’re so proud,” Pasupathy says. The operation continues to be tiny in comparison with the shirt manufacturing subsequent door, however it has expanded to 30 individuals. 

As Manish defined in that unique article, the household firm (referred to as PS Attire, satirically) has been round for 50 years and traditionally made shirts for lots of family American names – Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers and many others. 

It’s smaller now, however it’s additionally grow to be extra specialist, making extra various and attention-grabbing shirts for smaller manufacturers. We are able to’t point out any present purchasers, however there’s a variety of embroidery and sample happening, and a variety of newly trendy names. 

The archive (under) is large, with triple-stacked racks looping in corridors of shirts and fabric round an enormous warehouse. They’ve been good at preserving designs over the previous 50 years, and fairly just a few designers come to trawl it for inspiration. 

The campus employs over 300 individuals and features a creche, gardens, plus its personal Saturday song-and-dance evening. It’s 90% girls, and the corporate helps a variety of them with monetary independence – insisting on paying into private financial institution accounts, as an example, and serving to staff set these up.  

The truth is the household’s varied initiatives in all probability deserve a narrative all of their very own, given they embrace a big pickle enterprise (run by Prasan’s older brother), a theatre pageant began by Ranvir, and varied different initiatives.

Ranvir can also be a collector of conventional crafts, together with textiles – whereas we had been there he agreed to tackle a small assortment of Ganesh statues (negotiated within the automotive whereas giving us a tour of town) and confirmed us his newest acquisition, an historic ‘tree of life’ illustration (under). 

From a Everlasting Model reader’s standpoint although, the actual motion is over within the hand-looming shed. That’s the place a product is being produced that’s really stunning, a menswear custom, and more and more uncommon.

The very first thing you discover is the sound, a loud clacking created by every weaver flattening the picket bar on their loom. Every of the weavers has their very own rhythm, they usually’re subtly totally different, each by way of velocity and consistency. 

The result’s trails of sound that weave out and in of one another – not fairly random noise, however not fairly aware rhythm both. 

These are pit looms, so referred to as as a result of every sits in a synthetic pit, with the weaver then in a position to make use of each their ft and fingers. The fingers management the bar and the shuttle; the ft create the ability.

The final time I noticed this hand-weaving was 13 years in the past, at Breanish Tweed. That wasn’t a pit loom, however the precept was the identical. The weaver was Karen and the loom was referred to as Bertha. 

There are just a few totally different advantages to hand-loomed fabric, however the primary ones are the best way its velocity places more room into the material, giving it a novel, comfortable really feel, and being completed by people provides it pure variation, that means there are slubs and particular person texture to the fabric. It’s laborious and costly, however distinct.

Prasan has been doing this for just a few years, and he’s now within the technique of taking issues additional, by hand spinning the yarn earlier than it’s woven. That’s what the woman is doing above. To me, a spinning wheel like that’s harking back to fairy tales like Sleeping Magnificence, which says one thing about how lengthy it has been for the reason that apply was widespread in Europe.

In India, hand spinning has more moderen and significantly political significance. Ghandi made it a logo of emancipation from Britain as a result of spinning in India meant independence from the Empire’s domination of manufacturing. That is why the Indian flag has a spinning wheel on it. 

“Doing the spinning this fashion means we will produce conventional Khadi fabric, which makes use of undyed, hand-spun cotton,” says Prasan. “That feels fairly particular.”

Different new issues Prasan is engaged on embrace a spread utilizing undyed (however machine-spun) yarn, and ones with pure indigo dyes that can fade (in a lot the identical manner unique ‘bleeding’ madras did). 

He’s additionally planning to supply fabric on the market on-line, however that’s not prepared but. A whole lot of readers requested about this after our first article, apparently, so he does need to make it occur at some stage. 

Within the meantime, Unique Madras fabric is out there via the manufacturers they provide and thru their very own model. We’re additionally engaged on one thing for PS, which must be out there this summer time. That may embrace each completed shirts (made by Luca Avitabile in Naples) and fabric lengths. 

Thanks very a lot to Prasan, Ranvir and everybody at OMTC. Pictures by Jamie Ferguson.