Slow handcrafted fashion - More about the process

At Tibetan Flag Trail, all that we do we try to do in a sustainable manner, with a strong desire to give back to the community, it has been one of our driving forces - to be able to create a change - a change in the way we consume, from what we eat to what we wear.

So what just is slow fashion? A term you might hear quite often these days....

Lets begin by talking about what is not slow fashion, Consumerism has grown at such a rapid rate that the supply had to be amped at a equal pace, from this came the big companies that pushed local artisans out of the market completely by mass producing easy designs, using machines to replace humans and using of cheap labour.

This process also led to artisans being heavily unpaid and led to the demise of alot of traditional forms of handmade art.

With slow fashion we aim to bring back these ancient art forms, by scouring the nooks and corners of this world and working with local artisans and collaborating with their natural skills and our design ideas.

We enjoy every step in the process and we like to be a part of every step - from thread to your final piece of clothing, we take a lot of care in ensuring sustainability and creation of community in every step - we travel around the world to work with local artisans of different styles giving us a wide range of native designs - in turn creating a fare-trade based livelihood for these artisans.

We feel our karmic brownie points are being levelled up every-time we are able to give back to the community. We believe in creating a shift in the way fashion is looked at and how it is consumed - by being part of every step, getting rid of middlemen(who underpay the artisans), creating jobs for local artisans and making sure every persons efforts and skills well paid for and that every process is done with alot of love and care.

We would like to walk you down our slow process of creating slow fashion.

The first step starts all the way from the Picking the yarn that will be weaved into textile.

// YARN

First we carefully choose which kind of thread we would like to work with based on its origin, feel and resistance. We work with thick and pure cotton yarn, hemp yarn, silk and wool that are woven by sometimes by a handloom and other times through a machine. The self weave texture makes the textile extra strong and gives a nice little detailed touch to it.

//TEXTILE

Once the yarn has all been woven into fabric we make a final quality check, and then the fabric is cut into smaller batches and separated based on texture and finish. This cloth then goes through multiple curing processes such as a starch wash and a secret strengthening procedure .

// DYEING

We then get funky and mix our organic dyes in the tiny pool, take a moment to appreciate the swirls and whirls of the colours, often getting lost in the mesmerising beauty of colour penetrating water - and the creation of new ones by mixing colours, its truly psychedelic.

we use different dyeing techniques like tie dye, shibori and dip dye - This is one of the most fun parts of the process for us.

// BLOCK PRINTING

Once the cloth has been treated with vinegar and caustic soda to retain its colour it is dried in the sun in our balcony where we take a long look at it for planning out the next fun step - Block Printing on the fabric with our hand crafted wooden blocks.

The possibilities of creating different beautiful patterns is endless. You need a lot of patience and work very precise to lay the blocks out in sync and symmetry but hey we are all about those imperfections that make handmade clothing all that beautiful.

// EMBROIDERY

In the end - as finishing touch, we work together with a local tribe called Lambadi who specialise in embroidery and decorating fabric. They add tiny glitters and mirrors on some of the printed patterns to highlight them & make the textile look even more beautiful & shining.

And finally your finished outfit! Each piece we make is unique and takes us about two - three weeks to make one outfit from start to finish, we enjoy every step in the process and hope that you enjoy wearing our outfits as much as we do designing them.