THE BEAT OF A LOOM, THE HEARTBEAT OF A RURAL ECONOMY.

Saurabh Mangla, Founder of ipse ipsa ipsum

We worked with the weavers from the Ansari community in rural India to develop our new covers for sofas over the last few months.

We met the community of weavers in a village hard hit by the pandemic in September. The looms were empty and almost a ghost town. We took it upon ourselves to develop a fabric collection which was made with hand spun and on handloom so in places where there was no access to electricity, the rural folk could go about doing their work and then get it up to pass the Martindale test!

The thread is hand spun on the ‘ charkha’ spinning wheel and then woven together on a handloom.

The sounds of the shuttles moving became music to our ears as it signified a hope ; a resilience to move forward in the crisis.

Passivity is a cardinal sin, it couldn’t be more true at the time of the pandemic.

Whilst urban cities have their own challenges , the rural world has their own. If we are really concerned about addressing climate change and sustainability, we need to create a meaningful interaction between urban consumption and rural production so that the balance is preserved.