Light weight, soft, warm, intricately woven motifs, chemical-dye free, indigo intensifies with sunlight, handloom pure wool throws soften with use

CARE:
Wash in cold water with mild (e.g. herbal) shampoo, dry flat

Series no.1002 features six especially commissioned pure wool throws/shawls handwoven with a technique specific to Kachchh, Gujarat, India, by a family of highly-skilled cloth weavers, who still weave authentic Kachchh Shawls.

Natural indigo dyed, not chemically dyed

These intricately handwoven pieces of textiles express the artisans's vision in his own unique design language. Using Kachchh's heritage motifs, each master craftswoman/craftsman has developed their own unique design language, akin to their personal stamp, woven right into the textile!

Traditionally Kachchh Shawls are dyed in bright colours using synthetic dyes. TAIC's collaboration with its master partners involved developing textile that preserved the unique expression of artisan design and were free of chemical dye.

Series no 1002, created with pure, natural indigo dyed pure wool yarn, is how we imagine Kachchh Shawls to evolve and are something we are proud of.  

Special raw material - Sunlight 

Sunlight plays a key role when dying yarn with natural indigo. Natural indigo, sourced especially for this capsule collection of naturally-dyed Kachchh Shawls, intensifies with sunlight. The specific shade of blue of these pieces, a distressed denim blue, is a symbol of our changing climate and a reminder of the anomaly that the floods this year in Bhuj were. 

In my personal experience, my natural indigo textiles change colour when stored away from sunlight and intensify to a more saturated indigo blue when exposed to sunlight for a few days.

However, the initial shade of blue depends on the weather conditions of the place in which your indigo textile was being dyed. So whatever the shade of your natural indigo piece, cherish it! With our changing climate and increasingly unpredictable weather conditions, I feel that it's a miracle it got the sunlight it needed to give you that any shade of indigo.   

*GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION (GI)

The particular craft of achieving such intricate patterns using pure sheep and goat wool on a handloom is found only in Kachchh and was practiced in the creation of series no 1002 Kachchh Shawls.

It is not a surprise then, that among the registered GIs of India, Kachchh Shawls are listed a proud recipient of GI (application no 174).

So, what is geographical indication or GI?

GI is a protection given under TRIPS to products that are unique because of the geography of their origin, such as champagne from Champagne, France and Darjeeling tea from Darjeeling, India. The knowledge of weaving intricate motifs with pure wool has been passed on for years from one generation to the next among the cloth weavers community of Kachch. This craft is, therefore, practiced only in this region by the artisans of Kachchh's cloth weavers community.

This simply means that the only place in which these shawls are originally made and found is Kachchh, Gujarat, India. It was a privilege to break bread with these incredibly knowledgeable master craftspeople and collaborate with them to create something that is in keeping with the ethos of creating by hand - work with what the environment gives you.

After all, what is good for the Earth, is good for you. 

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