Supporting Family Weavers
100% Fair Trade
Support of artisans is part of Ekome Studio’s Mission. We have partnered with a family of weavers in the town of Nagari. It is located in the south of Andhra Pradesh, one of India’s southern states.
The family is led by two brothers, Tyagaraj and Manikandan. The first in charge of marketing and the second takes care of supervising the weaving process. But the entire family helps. Women in the family take care of the winding and warping, while men work on the weaving. And the kids play all over the place.
From hank to weave
Organic Dyes
We dye everything we can in natural dyes. For this fabric we dyed the yarn in hank form in fermented Indigo (Indigofera tinctorium). However, to go from hank to a thread that is workable with the vintage looms our family of weavers work with, we need to wind the yarn. This process is specifically difficult because the hanks are dyed manually, creating knots within the thread. Each hank has to be treated carefully so that the thread doesn’t break.
The Design
We are always looking to experiment in new fabrics. And we love textures in our fabrics. When we designed this fabric we didn’t really have in mind making a jacket out of it. It is something that developed once the fabric was in our hands. And we are very happy with the result of this Matt Weave.
Because we are doing very small productions, our t-shirts are stitched at the sampling unit of a GOTS and Fair Trade certified company.
Jitubhai
Dyer
Jagan
Weaver
Valliamma
Weaver
Jairaj
Tailor