In the Chhindwara district of southern Madhya Pradesh, India are the villages Sausar, Mohgaon and Lodhikheda. There, skilled weavers create vibrant mulmul fabric for TOAST using handlooms known in the local language as magtha. Supported by the non-profit Kala Swaraj Foundation, they have been making TOAST-designed fabrics for each collection since 2018.
“This partnership was one of the amazing things that happened when the organisation began,” says Hemendra Sharma, Kala Swaraj’s co-founder. “We believe that we should be growing organically, as we have a commitment to give the artisans year-round employment once they are enrolled, whether we have orders or not. But as TOAST has committed to buy a certain quantity of fabric each season, we have an assurance,” he says, that the weavers will have purposeful and recurring work.
Mulmul is a cotton fabric defined by its lightness – typically around 75 GSM – and high density. This makes it strong and fine, but not transparent; it is soft, and drapes beautifully. By definition, it must be hand-woven. “Handloom is the second largest employment sector in rural India,” says Hemendra. “Millions of people are dependent upon it for their livelihoods.” Holding up a magnifying glass to these millions, there are currently fewer than a dozen weavers who create the TOAST mulmul fabric, which is interwoven with the heritage of the region. They include Bhagwan Das, Rooma Dhakate, Fulwa Likhare and Maya Likhare, as well as Ganesh Rambade – one of the more experienced artisans, who has been with Kala Swaraj since the beginning of the foundation in 2016, and is working alongside his son, Sandesh, and younger brother, Vishnu.
Hand-weaving in the Nagpur region suffered during British rule. In 1850, there were 200,000 weavers making and selling textiles locally, but as the British promoted mill-woven textiles, the practice of hand-weaving decreased drastically and remained low. In Nagpur, Tata group inaugurated its first textile mill on 1 January 1877, the day Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. “Hand-woven textiles were almost lost due to the competition of the mill textile,” Hemendra says, which could be produced much more quickly and therefore at lower cost. Hand-weavers began leaving the villages and moving to the city, Nagpur, in pursuit of alternative employment.
Kala Swaraj Foundation sought to reinstate the craft tradition of the region, which had been fading away for more than a century. “When we started the foundation in 2016, we found no more than 5,000 hand-weavers in Nagpur,” says Hemendra. They were not weaving their original textile, cotton mulmul, but using a combination of silk and cotton. When Hemendra started working with the weavers, they said they wouldn’t be able to weave mulmul as they hadn’t woven pure cotton for generations. He urged them to try, and within a few weeks, they were handling the cotton with ease. “They knew how to do it because it’s in their DNA.”
The men in the area were typically the first to pursue weaving, explains Hemendra, as traditionally they have “an entrepreneurial mindset and seek their fortunes”. The foundation gradually introduced the women in these families, who were often focused on child rearing, to weaving, and now there are many in the area making their livelihoods this way. “This is not a very well-known story, but it is a success at the community level,” says Hemendra. “We were able to see a future in hand-looming.” Traditional craftsmanship often takes place in the home and hand-weaving is no exception. Hemendra compares the passing down of skills through generations to the way we learn to cook by watching our mothers. “They never set out to teach us, but we watch them and we learn,” he says. This allows weavers to manage their family priorities and incorporate the practice comfortably into their daily lives.
Before the artisans can begin weaving, Hemendra translates the TOAST designs into the local dialect. The cotton, grown in central India, is spun in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, then coloured with azo-free dyes 250 miles away from where it will be woven. After being dyed, it travels overnight by bus to the office in Sausar so it can be distributed to the artisans. The dyeing and pre-loom process takes ten days before the weaving takes place. Each weaver can produce three to five metres of fabric a day, depending on the design.
“Whatever emotions they have in their heart are going to be translated into the textile. When you produce something by hand, it is always going to be unique and beautiful.”
There are 11 colours in the vibrant mulmul for the Spring Summer 2025 TOAST collection, reflecting the theme, A Lightness of Being, which embraces a playful approach to life, fostering a sense of joy and creativity. After weaving each half inch of fabric, the coloured yarn is taken out and changed for the next, a time-consuming process that reduces the weaving rate of each artisan to two and a half metres per day. Hemendra stresses that there always needs to be flexibility on the delivery time for each order, believing that the artisans should not be rushed. “Whatever emotions they have in their heart are going to be translated into the textile,” he says. “When you produce something by hand, it is always going to be unique and beautiful.”
Jo Rossell, senior designer at TOAST, agrees. “I love how fine the fabric is, it enables us to gather and drape it into playful silhouettes,” she says. “It’s best suited to a ‘blouson’ style where we can use gathers and fullness, and we love to choose contrasting colours for the selvedge, which changes how we approach the cut of the garment.” For Spring Summer 2025, there is a shirt and a scarf made from the joyful fabric, and the design for Autumn Winter 2025 is already in the works at the TOAST studio. “It’s fantastic to have companies like TOAST who believe in the stories behind fabric,” Hemendra says. “They help preserve heritage. They are supporting not only India but one of the main industries of humankind, and the unique and traditional ways of making material.”
Discover our Check Hand Woven Mulmul Shirt and Scarf.
Words by Alice Simkins Vyce.
Photography by Anupam Diwan.
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