HOW WE MAKE YOUR CLOTHES
How We Make Your Clothes
May 28th 2020: This Fashion Revolution
Week, we make our supply chain more transparent, sharing behind the scenes.
This is how we go from I am a Sari to I was a Sari!
The Sari Sourcing
This is where it all
begins- at the vibrant flea market, Chor Bazaar (translated as ‘Thieves’
Market’). Definitely a place to visit if you’re ever in Mumbai. Here there are
sellers with bundles of saris from which our team selects and brings them back
to our HQ. We buy many kilos of saris every week.
In India most things get
re-used rather than thrown away as waste. The Waghris, a nomadic community of
India has been working in the trade for a century-and-a-half now. They travel
door to door, barterering second-hand clothes for new utensils from households
in almost every city. They are our invisible heroes helping Indians to reuse,
recycle and upcycle!
Selecting the right saris
Our Production Team led
by Satish, then kicks in, with their knack for selecting the right saris to
transform into something new and progressive. They envisage the future for
these vibrant prints and colours, matchmaking them into accessories or ready to
wear.
For us this is a really
important step- ensuring the fabric is both good quality and beautiful. Many
have flaws- stains or thinning of the fabric. Not all saris qualify to become I
was a Sari product. Once selected, the saris are given a thorough inspection
and checked if the product design can work around any flaws in the fabric.
We don’t waste though:
left overs are used as rags or donated to Goonj, a partner NGO to create
reusable sanitary pads and other products for women in rural India.
Embellishment
of the sari
With the support of
#GucciEquilibrium our female artisans have entered a traditionally male world-
the art of hand embroidery. In India, embroidery houses typically employ
thousands of male only karigars.
The Mumbai embroidery houses that supply Gucci worked with our artisans to teach them this beautiful and intricate art. Now they’re equipped for life with a highly marketable skill!
The Mumbai embroidery houses that supply Gucci worked with our artisans to teach them this beautiful and intricate art. Now they’re equipped for life with a highly marketable skill!
The embroidery and
embellishment techniques, whilst making the product more beautiful, they also
add to the number of hours the product takes to handcraft. Each hand
embellished product takes anywhere between two to twenty hours of work, which
means we can engage and employ more artisans.
Check out our hand embroidered products , made by our artisans who’ve learnt from the best in the industry!
Check out our hand embroidered products , made by our artisans who’ve learnt from the best in the industry!
The embroidered piece is
then cut and prepared for sewing. Since we upcycle pre-loved saris, complete
with flaws and all, it means every I was a Sari product is unique. Out of the 5
yards of sari material, only carefully selected parts can be used. So each sari
is flawfully yours!
Once cut, the product is
sewn by our artisans whose skills are improving every day. They’re women who
don’t let coming from underprivileged backgrounds hold them back. They were
unemployed, stay-at-home Mums who couldn’t earn a living for a variety of
reasons. With our partner NGOs they’ve been trained in how to make our
products, skilling themselves with different techniques which are applied to
make bags, accessories and our ready to wear apparel –
loungewear and resort wear.
We now engage with more
than 170 artisans between our two NGO partners – CORP and Animedh
Charitable Trust and we hope to work with many more women in
the making of I was a Sari.
We ask our artisans :
“What’s changed for you since you started working with us?”
Their answers:
#NOWICAN pay my way at home
#NOWICAN send my kids to school
#NOWICAN save up for higher education
#NOWICAN buy things for myself
#NOWICAN be independent
#NOWICAN hold my head high at home and in my community!
#NOWICAN pay my way at home
#NOWICAN send my kids to school
#NOWICAN save up for higher education
#NOWICAN buy things for myself
#NOWICAN be independent
#NOWICAN hold my head high at home and in my community!