How Yali, a new retail platform, is reviving the Kodiyala weave sari

The effects of mass-produced fashion has invited change over the past few years, indicating awareness among the modern consumer. But awareness alone cannot bring change. To break the systems, initiatives that directly connect the makers to wearers bring hope. One such project, launched as an online retail space, Yali, is an extension of the multi-disciplinary conducted by The Registry of Sarees. Here, handspun and handwoven textiles assume centre stage—with a deeper meaning. The Bengaluru-based platform has a unique focus on reintroducing handlooms to the Kodiyala weaving community in Karnataka, where power looms have been enforced as a result of monoculture of synthetic products. The result is a collection of accessibly-priced saris from Rs 6,000, woven in pure cotton, finished with techniques indigenous to the area.

Vogue gets in conversation with the project’s creative lead, Kshitija Mruthyunjaya, about everything it takes to revive ancestral traditions—from digital intervention to the challenges of bringing back handlooms. Highlights below.

What does it take to build a strong relationship between handloom weaver and wearer?

Weekly markets, where one-to-one interactions happened between weavers and wearers have disappeared over time. Not only did this say a lot about the product, but the wearer, even if they travelled long distances for purchases, got a sense of the local culture. With current monocentric systems valuing uniformity rather than diversity has led to a disconnection between weavers and wearers.

With the Hosa Arambha project, we hope to rebuild this relationship using a coding system that combines hand weaving skills and digital technology. Using colour and thickness of yarn, a coding sequence was developed that is hand woven as a design element in the saree to provide information such as the name of weaver, place of weaving and product information. The woven bar code sequence will be made available to the wearers digitally so it can be scanned on an app to retrieve the details. We have found over the course of the project that some weavers are eager to become well-versed with the technological side and connect digitally with the wearer.

Why is the focus on connecting the community back to its ancestral roots—handlooms and weaving cotton?

After several interactions with the weavers it was deciphered that most weavers want to move back to handloom weaving and weave cotton if it was made profitable. We learnt that the key community in Kodiyala, the Pasmashalis, are originally cotton weavers from Andhra Pradesh. Even before the advent of British rule, this highly-skilled weaving community moved from Andhra Pradesh to Karnataka and this migration continued there after. While the community have been primarily weaving silk for the last 60 years, the memories of cotton weaving is still evident in the stories they tell about their ancestors who wove fine and coarse cotton textiles for the royals and other local markets. However over time this has disappeared due to the high demand for silk and synthetic products woven quickly on powerloom to cater to the demand of the mass market. Out of 400 families in the village, only one per cent currently practice handloom.

Thus began our intervention in collaboration with Shrenis Trust to set up a handloom unit to support aspiring handloom weavers to connect back to their ancestral roots. These weavers even expressed that restarting cotton handloom weaving will mean they are increasing their basket of skills. Another key advantage of restarting handloom also lies in supporting non-weaving communities like dyers, spinners, warpers, winders, tailors etc who are involved in the pre and post loom processes.

What are its indigenous design elements in the Kodiyala weave and how are they reinvented?

Saris are currently woven on power looms in silk but a large number are woven with synthetic fibres with design and technique having little or no relationship to the context or community’s history. The key aspect for our design was to develop contextually relevant ornamentation to enable them to move away from the current (enforced) mass-produced designs based on monoculture.

One of the most important rituals in the Padmashali community in Kodiyala or elsewhere is their worship to Lord Markendaya. The origin of the caste with weaving as their primary occupation comes from their mythological stories. By amalgamating their historic mythological stories and their key language, Telugu, a set of seven motifs were developed with them and were used in the border and pallu of the saris. The colours and the texture are also informed by the legends.

What are the challenges of reviving hand loom, building trust among the craft cluster and weaving new-age design?

Building trust among the community is a slow process. In order to build that collaborative and collective working is key which was adopted from the start in this project. As the weavers are returning to cotton after a long time, there were technical challenges in terms of loom set up. While the basic loom structure was there, the supports and accessories had to be fitted and this was technically and spatially challenging.

Another big challenge was with the introduction of cotton as a primary material and the new motifs to the saree border and palla. For the phased intervention, we decided to start with mill spun yarn and slowly move to hand spun yarn on the coming phases. Similarly with dyes, while it is a long term plan to incorporate natural dyes and bring back the natural dyeing unit that once existed in the village, in this phase we have used azo-free dyes.

In terms of the design, the weavers are used to weaving traditional motifs like peacock, mango, rudraksh, parrot and others for decades. While they were thrilled at the introduction of new motifs, we had to collectively understand that no former design identity or technique defined a Kodiyala sari currently and it was imperative to focus on connecting the new designs to their ancestral roots and rituals.

What can you tell us about the appetite for all natural, handloom products among consumers today?

Whether it is raw material prices, transportation, huge unsold inventory or unemployment, mass migration of weaving and non-weaving communities has been extremely challenging for the handloom industry.

The market has been reversed during this time but we have tried our best to restructure to continue working closely with the weavers whilst maintaining safety measures. And the launch of Yali meant that there is an online platform for these handwoven products that come out as a result of the research at the Registry of Sarees to reach both domestic and international customers. This is needed in order to encourage, support and drive the respect needed for the craft communities and the handwoven products they create.

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