The brand’s project brief was to develop a collection of South silks, particularly in Coimbatore. The project focused on innovation at the fibre and yarn stage, as the sponsor wanted to intervene in new kinds of fabrics.
The theme that was worked on was inspired by the confluences of Indian rivers. In this project, understanding the entire cycle from the makers to the customers and translating a new design language into the brand’s language was done through constant feedback. The insights from the market research, which was done offline and online, were well analyzed and synthesized in executing the collection. In the beginning, the major challenge was to source yarns that were not available as per regular standards.
The entire setup of yarn twisting was done to achieve the required twisted silk yarns. There were samples that were developed and gave directions in terms of innovation, which was an eye-opener for the entire project. Various kinds of fabrics were developed to understand the interaction between the different twists (S and Z) of yarns and colors. As a result, a new kind of texture was achieved. Thus, a clearer picture was there to implement these new textures into the final saree designs, and a collection of 14 sarees (7 Plain and 7 S&Z) with few colorways was finally executed. The collection’s alignment with the different twists and colors of the theme resulted in the portrayal of the story with innovation. The overall experience with the project was a real-time, first-hand experience. The entire journey had several challenges to overcome, from the intervention in the yarn stage, color interaction of yarns, and the final execution into fabric.
