On The Road In India – Part Two — Celebrating Handmade Cloth
There is a moment each year when we return home from India and everything feels suspended between timeframes.
We unpack our bags and settle back into Vancouver after more than two months on the road—moving from Rajasthan to Andhra Pradesh, Telangana to Bengal, Mumbai to Kachchh. The final weeks spent completing our clothing collection at our Maiwa Studio just outside Jaipur. This is a time of jet lag—deep reflection and a moment to share with all of you—our community.
A STORY OF CLOTH AND SLOWCLOTHES
The cloth we are working with now, was set into motion a year and a half—sometimes two years ago.
A conversation over chai. Looking at samples. Revisiting cloth from the year before.
Decisions about yarn counts and weave structures.
A dyer adjusting mordants, working patiently toward a colour that sings.
All of this lives in the cloth we hold today.
And at the same time, what we’ve just witnessed—what we’ve sat with over these past two months—is only just beginning.
We’ve placed orders knowing we won’t see these textiles for a year. Maybe longer.
This is the nature of the work.
There is no immediacy. No instant turnaround. Instead, there is trust—built slowly over years—with weavers, dyers, printers, each working within their own lives and seasons.
Cotton is grown. Spun. Dyed with plants.
Woven on handlooms in homes and small rural workshops.
Printed using wooden blocks and repetition.
Back in our studio, time begins to layer.
Cloth from the past arrives just as new ideas are set into motion for the future. What we have just begun will, in time, return—onto our cutting table, into garments, into your hands.
This is slow clothes at its core.
Made on a human scale. Rooted in relationship.
It asks us to think differently about where things come from—and who makes them.
Each year, as we return, we step back into this rhythm—holding past, present, and future all at once, in cloth.
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
“A deep and sustained inquiry into the origins of what we wear … powerful and persuasive”
— The Washington Post
A sweeping and captivatingly told history of clothing and the stuff it is made of—an unparalleled deep-dive into how everyday garments have transformed our lives, our societies, and our planet.
In this panoramic social history, Sofi Thanhauser brilliantly tells five stories—Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics, Wool—about the clothes we wear and where they come from, illuminating our world in unexpected ways. She takes us from the opulent court of Louis XIV to the labor camps in modern-day Chinese-occupied Xinjiang. We see how textiles were once dyed with lichen, shells, bark, saffron, and beetles, displaying distinctive regional weaves and knits, and how the modern Western garment industry has refashioned our attire into the homogenous and disposable uniforms popularized by fast-fashion brands.
Drawn from years of intensive research and reporting from around the world, and brimming with fascinating stories, Worn reveals to us that our clothing comes not just from the countries listed on the tags or ready-made from our factories. It comes, as well, from deep in our histories.
Shop All Books
Slow clothes are a journey in the making.
This lecture and film showcases points on that journey. Each maker that we feature is in full stride – with one foot in the traditional territory of the past and one foot already placed in the optimistic landscape of the future.
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