This week I had the pleasure of working with the incredibly talented tailors of our host company Swara: Voice of Women. As someone who has always enjoyed creativity, art and design this was part of the CraftHER program that I unapologetically admit to being the most enthused by. And it did not disappoint. On day one we visited the Swara headquarters in central Kottayam where we were greeted with a beautiful, vibrant display of indigo dress coupled with smiling, welcoming faces (as well as a Swara gift tote bag complete with notebook and dress for which we all delightedly and immediately changed into). Now, united by the classic "Swara" blue, we commenced introductions. Omana Chechi was the first to introduce herself, a fifty five year old BA in Political Science turned tailor. What a woman. She is the master tailor at Swara and over the course of the week assisted in bringing our capsule Swara collection designs to life - our task for the week. We spent most of our time during the week at the tailoring unit owned by Omana and supported by Archana Women’s Centre.
Me and my partner Grace designed six pieces for this fundraiser collection: a pair of balloon trousers with bottom tie detail; double colour wrap trousers; wrap skirt; balloon drop-crotch, open back, dungaree pantaloons; a reversible side vented top and finally a kimono style shrug - inspired by Swara’s very own. The material for these pieces we had sourced from a local weaving co-operative in Chendamangalam, India. The tailors managed to bring three of our designs to life (pictured above) in just two days and against an intermittent power supply. I was amazed, privileged and proud seeing them come to life. Admittedly I entered the process with an abundance of design ideas that I thought would be easy to translate - how I was wrong! The language barrier was not the only barrier we faced in communicating our designs. It was difficult to find the design language to explain what we wanted and we ended up resulting to a series of funny actions, sketches and reference images. It came to light that often I was not clear on my own idea and therefore had no hope in explaining it to someone else - often my idea changed, I found this flexibility difficult but extremely rewarding, refreshing and remarkably applicable for skill development in both leadership and teamwork.
In addition to designing the capsule collection for Swara both myself and Grace decided that we would utilise this incredible access to these wonderfully talented female tailors that had been granted so generously to us by Asha, to design and bring to life our own collections for our personal projects. Inspired by the design process I designed a series of different trouser styles and started work on my own brand curation. I cannot express how grateful I am to Asha for encouraging a “can-do” entrepreneurial spirit within me. We were taken to local fabric shop Narmada textiles and got the privilege of selecting our own fabrics (for which I bought 6 metres of 6 different colours). The women at the shop were so helpful, generous and patient with my indecision over the colour combinations and shades for my designs. The whole experience felt like the beginning of something - a dream to have a sustainable fashion brand of my own one day.
My ideas for branding continued to develop one night at the dinner table when Preetha, our project coordinator, “flippantly” called my trouser design “the flip pant” due to its inverted, bloc colour, “flapped” or “layered” design. Enough said - watch the space! Thank you team Swara for an incredible week!
CraftHER is a proprietary project bringing scholars from around the world to study the intersection of traditional craft, feminism, and women’s amplification in Kerala, India. Created by Swara: Voice of Women, the project was established in 2024 with a cohort of 6 scholars but hopes to expand in forthcoming years. Follow @craftherbyswara on Instagram for more details and to follow along on our journey!