Linen as a Yarn in Indian Hand-woven Textiles

My experiments and interpretation

Indian textile traditions, rich and diverse, today have a special place for linen, a yarn with a history as rich as the culture itself. As a versatile and sustainable yarn, linen has found itself a new definition in modern India's fashion panorama, notably through our disruptive innovation of the linen sari and its ever going popularity amongst the sari lovers.

My journey with linen began many years ago. I started my design carrier as a menswear designer in an Indian corporate firm. That is when I first started working with linen textiles for men’s shirts. My first notes were: Linen whencompared to cotton or silk was thicker, more coarse and it wrinkled. But the very same features made it special, a textile that had a personality of its own and one had to work around it. Difficult to manipulate and control this yarn with its quiet luxury and unique personality soon became my favourite.

I moved into a craft cluster project after 4 years of corporate job. The 3 years I spent on this project opened my eyes to the unique possibilities in the handloom ...