When I first started working with Malkha, I thought my role was quite clear. I was there to develop designs that could help the organisation reach a wider market.
But the more time I spent with the yarn and the weavers, the more I realised that design development in a craft system is very different from designing a product in isolation.
The experience taught me that an idea may look very simple on paper, but making it work within an existing craft practice is another matter altogether.
Understanding the Yarn
My first visit took me to Chirala, where Malkha had its spinning unit.
I stayed in a small colony in Machavaram. For the next few days, my mornings followed a different routine. I would walk to the spinning unit, watch the yarn being made and try to understand the hank system and the way the yarn moved from spinning to weaving.
I wanted to understand the material before designing anything.
How much yarn was supplied to a weaver? In what form? What could the loom handle? What were the limitations of the reed? How could I introduce variations without making the weaving process difficult?
I was not interested in creating beautiful designs on paper and then asking someone else to find a way to execute them.
I wanted the design to come from the material and the process.
My first thought was to do less rather than more.
Malkha yarn already had a beautiful texture. I felt there was no need to cover it with elaborate designs. I wanted to explore simple sarees where the colour, texture and character of the yarn itself would become the design.
But when I shared these ideas with the weavers, I got a very different response.
Most of them were experienced weavers, many above fifty years of age. They knew their looms well and were comfortable with the processes they had been following for years.
Some of their responses were:
“We cannot work with dark colours.”
“If there is too much design, how will we know if something has gone wrong?”
“We need something simple enough to execute.”
I was surprised.
What I considered simple was not necessarily simple for them.
That was my first important learning. A design may look uncomplicated to a designer, but the person who has to execute it may see many difficulties that the designer has not even considered.
The First Experiment
I started thinking about how I could introduce something new without asking the weavers to learn an entirely different technique.
One idea was to experiment with variations in warp density.
The idea was quite simple. We could have different densities in different sections of the warp. This would change the way the warp and weft interacted and create subtle variations on the surface of the fabric.
The interesting part was that the weaver did not have to change the basic weaving process.
The main intervention was in the way the yarn was pieced and arranged before weaving.
I thought this was a good way forward. It would allow us to explore a new visual character while making use of the weaver’s existing knowledge.
The weavers agreed to try it. They told me to come back in two or three weeks to see the samples.
I returned to Hyderabad.
Two weeks passed. I called.
“I was unwell.”
Another call.
“There was something in the family.”
Another.
“There is a marriage.”
Three months passed, and nothing had moved.
I began to wonder whether the problem was the design itself or something else.
Changing the Place, Changing the Approach
It was difficult to accept that the sampling was not happening. But slowly, I realised that perhaps I was trying to do the right experiment in the wrong place.
In craft projects, we often assume that if something does not happen, the design must be too difficult or the maker must be unwilling.
But there can be many other reasons. The organisation, the production system, the availability of people and even the everyday responsibilities of the makers can affect the work.
I went back to Malkha and suggested that the yarn be sent to me so that I could develop the samples with another group of weavers.
The production would continue through the existing system, but I needed some freedom to experiment during the design development stage.
The yarn came from Chirala, and I moved the sampling to Pulugurtha.
This changed everything.
The work started moving, and within a few weeks we were able to produce samples that had taken months to even begin earlier.
It also gave me another idea.
Why should we spend so much time making one sample at a time? Could we not create several possibilities within a single warp and then select the ones worth developing?
The Colour Blankets
I began experimenting with what I called colour blankets.
We selected around seven or eight principal colours and started combining them in different ways within a single warp.
Instead of preparing a separate warp for every colour combination, we could explore many combinations within one warp.
A single piece of fabric could show dozens, sometimes hundreds, of colour possibilities.
It was not meant to be one finished product. It was a collection of possibilities.
Once we identified the combinations we liked, we could give them codes and reproduce them as proper designs.
The Pulugurtha Cooperative Society prepared these colour-blanket warps and eventually sent them to Malkha.
I was not present when they arrived.
Soon, I received a call.
“What have you done?”
There were too many colours, too much yarn and too many samples. From their point of view, I had created an unnecessary expense.
They were used to making reference samples that could eventually be sold. A sample was expected to have some commercial value.
What I was proposing was different. I wanted to use the fabric as a way of exploring possibilities before deciding what should actually be produced.
The question was whether the extra yarn and the effort involved in making these samples were justified.
There was also concern about the density variations. Someone had calculated that the process would consume more yarn, which meant higher costs.
The concern was understandable.
“What happens if we make it and nobody buys it?”
That question stayed with me.
I was looking at the additional yarn as part of the design experiment. They were looking at it as an additional production cost.
Eventually, I was asked to simplify the collection. Instead of exploring so many colours, perhaps we could select a few designs, make proper yardages and concentrate on products that could be sold.
I agreed to think about it.
An Unexpected Response
A couple of months later, I received another call from Uzramma.
This time, she sounded very excited.
A large buyer had visited Malkha, seen the collection and liked it. They had bought almost everything.
Even the colour blankets that had created so much concern had gone along with the rest of the collection.
I was happy that the work had found a market, but my first question was:
“Do we still have one or two samples?”
I wanted to keep them as references. They represented the thinking behind the experiment.
Almost everything had been sold.
I remember feeling both happy and slightly amused.
The very samples that had been considered too expensive and difficult to sell had found a buyer.
The market had responded to something that the production system itself had initially resisted.
What I Learnt About Design
This experience changed the way I looked at design development in craft.
Earlier, I thought a designer’s job was to come up with ideas and find ways to make them happen.
I slowly began to understand that the job is not always about introducing something new. Sometimes it is about creating possibilities within what already exists.
The weaver has knowledge that the designer may not have. The material has its own behaviour. The production system has its limitations. And the market has its own expectations.
All these things influence the final design.
I also learnt that the easiest design to make is not necessarily the most interesting one, and the most complicated design is not necessarily the best.
What matters is finding a balance between the material, the maker and the possibilities of the process.
I had gone to Malkha thinking I would design for the weavers. But the experience made me realise that I had to design with their knowledge, not around it.
The colour blankets taught me something else. We don’t always have to know the final answer before we begin. Sometimes, it is better to create several possibilities, observe what happens and then decide what is worth taking forward.
That way of thinking has stayed with me.
Even today, when I work with indigenous cotton, I prefer to experiment with the material and understand what it can do before deciding what the final product should be.
I learnt that design is not always about arriving with an answer. Sometimes, it is about creating the right conditions for possibilities to emerge.
