The Handloom Story: The Revival of Ayyampettai Kutni Fabric

 


In a world where the global fashion trends are constantly evolving, upholding our intangible culture is on the foremost line. Weavers of India play a vital role in exhibiting our culture across the globe. Ayyampettai Kutni fabric is a medley of silk and cotton in a noble note. It is exclusively known for its unique heritage textile engineering technique, shiny glossy silk in the front and cotton in the rear, woven in satin weave, which makes it comfortable designer clothing.

History

The major contribution of Kutni weaving style comes from the weavers of the Sourashtra community, who had migrated to Tamilnadu from Gujarat. With their exquisite knowledge and extraordinary skills in silk weaving they created silk clothings and other materials for the royals and eventually settled here. They were locally known as ‘pattu nool karanga’ (silk people) and passed on the tradition for generations.

 The journey

The story revolves around Mr. Selvaraj, a master weaver awardee who works his spell on threads to unveil this wonder. Although this sounds magical, the exquisite handwork met its 12th hour long back. Our team set foot on a closed path to revive it back and on its way to re-introduce the heritage marvel to the contemporary world. The story’s leading light Mr. Selvaraj, despite all his woe, gives credence to his weaving. “Considering the worth and time we’ve spent to ace the material, Kutni fabric deserves over and above” said Mr. Selvaraj.  

Study on fabric structure

To envision the above said words, our team conducted a field study to document every nook and corner of the weaving process. Weaving of Kutni starts with bleaching the silk yarns which then continues with warp counting followed by tie resist dye technique and comes to a conclusion by setting up of handloom with satin weaving and cutting of saree at the end. As kutni fabric follows same weaving procedure, Tie & dye technique and loom setup are the one which stands out and need extra attention. Ikat like patterns are the sequel of multiple hours spent on tying knots. The weavers follow a pattern for knotting which they locally patented as nesavu kattu.

 Issue Identification


The major glitch was found in the loom setup as the weaving of kutni requires a different procedure. It follows the satin weave technique unlike the regular, which requires to alter the loom setup frequently. 


After the observation of existing saree designs, the team understood that different design requires different loom setup. While considering jacquard loom as an alternative, there is again an obstacle- the card designers are very low in number. 

Towards a new beginning

After discussion of the major issue, our team approached Mr. Kumaravelu of KP Technologies, a software developer to develop an E-loom. This 96-hooks Electronic Cardless Jacquard shall be used to build miniature loom in order to weave 36” width fabric/scarp and dress material. This may encourage more women weavers to get their hands on revival act or generally in weaving line. 

Harnessing the talent

·       ‘Kutni weaves’- is a revival centre established at Ayyampettai with 4 handlooms, 2 jacquard looms and 2 E-looms in the progress.

·       The team trained Mr. Govindas, a master in harnessing to work in E-loom. He came up with a loom harnessing syllabus that not only serves as a guide for weavers but also helps in delivering the heritage textile engineering in its own technical way. Before all this he worked as a freelancer, seeing his dedication and thirst for knowledge, we supported him to establish a start-up named ‘Viswas textile harnessing’

·        ‘Neer’, is a boutique established by a designer after being inspired by the works and kutni material.

Adding the colors

For a better guidance of the weavers as well as to serve as a catalogue in customer’s perspective we created the Colour gamut concept. Colour gamut was primed for butta and pallu design hinged on saree base colour.

All these attempts on revival, has brought hope in Mr.Senthil (son of Mr.Selvaraj), that he chose the weaving field over his career. We chose weavers and their work not only to voice out their never-ending labor, but also because they could be the last practitioners of long lived skills and they are the one who help us portray our culture the best. 

On a hunt for old world,
Rakhshana
Team Kural



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