The much awaited Amazon India Fashion Week kick-started in New Delhi and the first show of the event was dedicated to weavers. Showcasing its autumn winter collection for this year, The Handloom School, supported by Good Earth, staged the collaborative works of Akaaro, Antar-Agni, Good Earth, Neeru Kumar, Nicobar Peru, Rajesh Pratap Singh, Rohit Bal, Sanjay Garg, Suket Dhir, Urvashi Kaur and 11.11/eleven eleven.
The collection was a mixture of fibers—linen, wool and different kinds of silks and cottons—all blended together, with black, white, grey and yellow colours dominating the ramp.
Highlighting the collection, Sally Holkar, founder and CEO, WomenWeave Charitable Trust, said the idea of the collection was to bring the weavers into the spotlight to help them earn better and make them aware of what happens to their cloth.
"Weavers are always in the background, but they are the ones who make these clothes. They never come to know what happens to their clothes after it leaves their looms. Once they understand all these things, they will be inclined to stay in their native places as weavers, knowing that they can interact with the world now and get more money than they got before," Sally said.
Dhir, while explaining the collection, said the collection is more about weaving than anything else. "There was no hero except the fabric and the weaver. Design just added and did it's bit and made it little more wearable and contextual to the modern day."
The Handloom School had trained the weavers to showcase the designs and other things. "The weavers had no idea where their products went. It's only the middlemen who knew about this. The weavers were also clueless while dealing with the market. They had no idea about designing, procuring yarns, dyeing yarns and designing new fabrics. So all of these we teach in our school along with the costing, pricing and marketing of their product," said Sally.
