India - Fabric

The Kalamkari fabrics of Machilipatnam, with their intricate designs, are used in clothing and wall hangings.
Kalamkari refers to dye-painted cloths and the technique used to create them.



Their name derives from kalam, for a pen-like tool used to draw outlines on the cloth, and kari (work).
Fabrics are outlined with a cotton-tipped bamboo stick and dyed in vegetable or mineral colours.
The process involves washing, rinsing, soaking and bleaching muslin, and applying mordants and dyes using natural substances like indigo for blue, madder for red, mango bark and dried myrobalan fruit for yellow, palm sugar and rusted iron for black.
The dyeing process is very elaborate and can take several days to complete.



While some pieces are hand-drawn, large canvas and sheets are block-printed.
The work done in Machilipatnam, often using block printing in conjunction with hand painting, features decorative floral and vegetable designs that appealed to local kingdoms and to export trade.
This culminated in European demand for Machilipatnam chintz, which derives its name from the Hindi word chint (spotted).



We spent one whole afternoon looking at fabric creation and production.
This process can only be done when they are not in rainy season - leaving them jobless for four months out of the year.
We talked with many workers about the wage they made and on average most worked twelve hour days making only one dollar per day.