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* The making of Kubsa
How to design a KUBSA (Kubsa/ಕುಬ್ಸ means saree blouse in north Karnataka Kannada dialect)
Travel to a middle-of-nowhere North Karnataka village. Don't worry if you look out of place. You are there to work with Koudi artisans, but that shouldn't stop you from wandering in the bylanes of the village. Avoid eye contact with stray dogs & act brave.
Start working, & by noon, you will come across fascinating facets of rural life & work. Plonk yourself next to the oldest person in the group, as they are the best storytellers. Don't be shy in complimenting the amazing-looking...
* Cotton V/s Polyester national flag.
You have two options.
Option 1:
A farmer grows Jayadhaara cotton variety with other vegetables & pulses, which takes care of clothing & nutrition for all of us. The cotton is harvested by employing local women and sold as per MSP.
After ginning, the medium staple length cotton, ideal for manual spinning, get sent to a slivering plant, & the roving cotton thus produced is handed over to the Khadi sangha.
The yarn spun by rural women on ambara charaka gets washed, starched, warped, wound, & hand-woven by various craftspeople in the village. The Khadi textile produced with minimum energy &...
* Traceability v/s Transparency
At Metaphor Racha, we have always shared information regarding various processes of textile making, methods of printing/embroidery, the people behind our work, the economics, the piechart & the works. We blog about it on our website.
Transparency is the new green, they say. So is Metaphor Racha fully transparent? The answer is not easy.
We neither hesitate to answer any of your queries nor do we post any made-up information. On a different note, usually, the smaller brands in the craft sector are questioned & not the bigger ones or other industries!
Don't get me wrong, I agree that transparency...
* Those who taught me tailoring and life skills.
Recently, I wrote about body measurements & compared them to a saree blouse, & many of you appreciated it. Thanks.
I have no formal training in fashion or pattern making, & whatever little bit that I have learned is because of a few friends, tailors, a lot of books, several mistakes & endless practice. I continue to learn.
One such person from whom I learnt a few finer nuances of blouse cutting is Sanju, my then tailor {he passed away 13 years back due to illness :( }. I am referring to pre-MetaphorRacha days when I used to engage in...
* How to measure your blouse?
The other day, I happened to notice a conversation on FB between a clothing brand with one of their customer regarding how to measure oneself and compare it to a saree blouse. I didn't dare to intervene as they were busy deciphering the difference between chest and bust, and they were all over.
In short, for women, bust measurement is the fullest part measured around the chest (Image-1). Usually, the word 'bust' is associated with women and 'çhest' for men. The measurements taken above...
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