Namaste & Hello friends of Luxurionworld, India is home to a plethora of handlooms, weaves and handicrafts. While these are arts and crafts that are always in danger of succumbing to modern technology and getting buried under a sea of faster, quicker methods to manufacture; there are several that still survive and thrive. Indian handlooms and spinning wheels contribute largest variation of designs. It has history of development right from fishing nets produced by Kaibartas or fishermen to muslin or baluchari or benarasi. India gives the finest textiles like Muslins, Brightest textile like Silk, Cheapest textile like Jute and Strongest textile like Ramie. It’s a different feeling of owning a material that has been carefully put together and woven. We at Luxurionworld are committed to re-invent and re-discover our age old weaving and cloth making processes by reaching out to the grass-root weaver, dyer, and embroiderer
Natural Fibres: All our products are made from Natural fibres such as Silk, Cotton or sometimes Wool. Silk is the most luxurious choice. It has a long history in India, where it is considered a symbol of royalty and prestige, a "pure fabric" used for all religious, ritual and ceremonial occasions. Natural fibres can be classified according to their origin. The vegetable, or cellulose-base such as cotton, flax, and jute; the animal or protein-base fibres include wool, mohair, and silk; an important fibre in the mineral class is asbestos. Among those in the first group are brocades, bandanna work or tie-and-dye, muslins and painted and printed cottons. Brocades include examples of the famous kincobs (kinkhabs) of Benaras and Ahmedabad, woven in silk and gold and silver thread, on handlooms.
Tie & Dye: Tie-dye or bandanna fabrics represent one of the oldest Indian techniques. It consists in tieing tightly with waxed strings portions of a cotton or silk fabric cloth before dipping it into the dye-vat. The strings are afterwards untied, the parts which were produced remaining uncoloured to form the pattern. This technique lends itself most effectively to patterns composed of all-over spots or circles or group of spots. Gujarat and Rajasthan are the main centres of tie-dye work. Here the cloths are known as chunaris and are classified according to the number of knots in the repeat. Crude tie-dye work on coarse calico comes from many parts of India, especially Assam and the Deccan. [caption id="attachment_121" align="alignnone" width="460"] She Has Never Walked beyond her village but her fingers have touched the world[/caption]
Ikat : The so called Ikat technique is another kind of tie-dye. In the making of these cloths, the warp and weft threads are dyed separately by the tie-dye process before weaving. Ikats fabrics are made in several parts of India; besides the well known Patola. We will discuss all these techniques in much detail later.
Choosing Traditional Handmade Textiles - A Fashionable Choice: Natural fibres are at the heart of a fashion movement that goes by various names: sustainable, green, uncycled, ethical, eco-, even eco-environmental. Young designers now offer “100% carbon neutral†collections that strive for sustainability at every stage of their garments’ life cycle – from production, processing and packaging to transportation, retailing and ultimate disposal. Preferred raw materials include flax and hemp, which can be grown without agrochemicals and produce garments that are durable, recyclable and biodegradable. Fashion collections also feature organic wool, produced by sheep that have not been exposed to pesticide dips, and “cruelty-free†wild silk, which is harvested – unlike most silk – after the moths have left their cocoons.
A responsible choice By choosing natural fibres, you are contributing to the economies of developing countries and help fight hunger and rural poverty
Social and economic effects of the handcrafted textile industry in India: In the process of development members of either sex alike took part. There is a saying among Kaibarta community of Bengal “ Dugga Katen Soru Suta Mahadev bonen jaalâ€. Meaning Goddess Durga spins the fine yarn while Lord Mahadev weaves the net, considering each Kaibarta women as Goddess Durga while each man of the community as Lord Mahadev Textile Industry was one of the earliest industries to come into existence in India and it accounts for more than 30% of the total exports. Indian textile industry is the second largest in the world second only to China. It has vast potential for creating of employment opportunities in the agricultural, industrial, organized and decentralized sectors and rural and urban areas, particularly for women and disadvantaged. It is constituted of the following segments: Handlooms, silk textiles, woolen textiles, Handicrafts and coir.
The fate of rural economy and the fortune of major fibre crops and crafts viz. cotton, wool, silk, Handicrafts and Handlooms, which provides employment to millions of farmers and craft persons in rural and semi-urban areas, depends on the textile industry. The sectors of Handlooms and Handicrafts embody the rich traditional, historical and cultural diversity that distinguishes India from the rest of the world. Besides, women contributing for over 50% of artisans in the country, and a significant mass of weavers/artisans consisting of scheduled castes, schedules tribes and religious minorities, the two sectors also represent the economic lifeline of the most vulnerable sections of our society.
As an economic activity, the handloom sector occupies a place second only to agriculture in providing livelihood to the people. It is estimated that handloom industry provides employment to 65 lakh workforce directly and indirectly and there are about 35 lakh looms spread all over India. All our products at the Luxurionworld are authentic handloom.
Also Read- Handcrafted Textiles of India