Threads That Bind: Handloom, Womenswear and Identity

We’re at a crossroad in the global embrace of Indian fashion where a visible shift is underway. Indian handicrafts and artisanship have been a topic of conversation and a crucial pillar for brands here and abroad for a while but we are now witnessing an open acceptance of the “Made in India” tag. Against this backdrop, we invited Somya Lochan, founder-designer of Quarter, a Delhi-based label that centres Indian handicrafts, to initiate a conversation on gender, design, social expectations and innovation in handloom. While the brand started as a menswear label, it presented its first set of womenswear looks at Lakmé Fashion Week 2025 via its Gen-Next incubator programme. The diversification into womenswear came with a huge sense of responsibility, says Lochan. “Each woman I design for is a representation of so many generations of women who have fought to establish and break boundaries”.

In conversation with Lochan is Rina Singh, founder of cult favourite Eka — with a retail footprint of over a hundred stockists globally. Though Lochan’s is a relatively fresh voice — Quarter only came into being towards the end of 2023 — Singh is a veteran, having launched Eka almost 14 years ago. But despite the two-decade-odd age gap between them, they have plenty of common ground. Both are trained in textile design and operate out of Delhi. The names of their labels are curiously aligned. While Quarter alludes to the influence that a designer wields in the larger scheme of things — one-fourth — Eka signifies authentic individuality and oneness. And both brands have spawned communities and dialogues around craft, culture, art and the self. Yet they diverge greatly in their end products and aesthetics.

Excerpts from the conversation…

How did you come to launch your labels?

Somya Lochan (SL): We did an official launch in December 2023 but it only became commercially available a month later. After graduating from NIFT Bengaluru (National Institute of Fashion Technology) in textile design in 2019, I worked as a textile designer. I thought I had landed my dream job sometime in 2022 but then I started feeling like I didn’t belong there at all. It was a very unsettling phase for me. I quit my job and went back home to Ranchi. Soon after, I went to Bankura in West Bengal for three months to work on a project with dhokra sculptors, and that’s when my ideas first started to take shape. Dhokra is an ancient form of metal casting and all our brass buttons are made by hand in Bhujodi, Gujarat and Bankura. After that, I spent a couple of months in Kutch where I worked with an NGO that is dedicated to conserving the crafts and heritage of the region. In Gwalior, I worked with Aaranya, a non-profit trust that operates out of Jai Vilas Palace for a couple of months. At that point, I was unsure if my engagement with the craft communities would lead to anything at all since a solid brand identity had not formed yet. It was during a discussion with a master artisan in Mundra in Kutch that I realised that if I wanted to launch a label, my role as designer would comprise just one quarter of the total contribution because I’d be working with, say, a seventh-generation batik artist. And that’s how the name Quarter came about.

Rina Singh (RS): I was immersed in crafts in my childhood as there was a lot of craft- and textile-based activity in my household. I come from an agricultural background and so dhurrie makers would come over to work on a seasonal basis. My maternal grandmother would make yarn on the charkha (handloom). In the past, women used to do it all the time. I never had any formal training but I was always making clothes for my cousins. I would dress them up for weddings and other occasions. And then I got a scholarship to study fashion in Wigan & Leigh College in Greater Manchester.

The UK was my passport to fashion. We didn’t grow up watching MTV; we had no international fashion magazines in India. When I was in boarding school near Chandigarh, I would create mood boards that consisted of sketches along with cutouts of Garden Vareli ads and Raja Ravi Varma paintings that I found in a magazine. I don’t know why I was building these moodboards but I wish I had photographed them so that I could say that it started there. It’s only when I landed in London that I realised the girls there were so much more fashionable; they knew about eight different kinds of heels — and I was still figuring out my fashion sensibility. In Rajput households, you see a lot of Victorian influences — women still dress up in chiffon and wear pearls and carry their clutches. And I too was trying to build a connection between India and the world in my head. But I felt really disjointed. I didn’t believe in fashion. I didn’t understand it. However, I was very rooted in India. Even when I was presenting my final collection in the UK, I had carried a lot of tie-dye bandhni dupattas in pastel colours. When I came back to India in 2000, I worked for about three months at a fashion house, and I felt that I was a very bad fit. Thankfully, at that time, NIFT Gandhinagar was recruiting for its R&D wing. Spearheaded by handicraft expert Villoo Mirza, it was focused on handicrafts and stood for what NIFT as an educational and research institution should achieve outside of fashion education. I felt like this would help me bridge the gap in my head. So I joined, and I worked across several craft clusters.

SL: Wow.

RS: Our team worked with several dance tribes in Gujarat. We also worked on the Porbandar Khadi project and several Eri and Muga silk projects in Arunachal (Pradesh). I was learning and starting to form my own fashion identity. Archana Shah of Bandhej — who I had interned with in 1998 — David and Rakesh (of Abraham & Thakore), textile conservator Martand Singh or Mapu are all pioneers in the Indian textiles space. They have played a role in establishing our authenticity and authority in fashion.

I grew up in a period where they were building their labels, and people like me were learning from them. I was looking at Ritu Kumar, Rohit Bal, David Abraham and Rakesh Thakore, Rajesh Pratap Singh for inspiration. These were my idols and they were all textile-led companies. I started realising that brands abroad were also built from authentic stories, whether it was John Galliano or an Alexander McQueen. I started realising what my story could be and I knew that whatever I was going to do next was for myself. I quit my job at ITC and started making clothes for my friends. I was also showing at small exhibits and I found that there were a lot of women who were ready to buy that kind of clothing. So that’s how Eka happened.

SL: Rina, that actually says so much. I’m not even talking about it from the perspective of a designer. As an individual coming from a smaller city, I could never find fashion relatable. You actually diverted from the existing story which is heartening for brands like mine. Your brand became a reference point because it did not completely comply with the conventional definition of fashion.

RS: The ecosystem of crafts in our country — whether it is ajrakh, jamdani or tangaliya — is rich. The yarn is available, the weather is conducive to making textiles. It’s a very intelligent ecosystem that has existed for generations. How can we look away from that and only make corsets and short dresses?

SL: I was talking to a friend in the industry a while back and we came up with this term “apsara-coded” for designers who do not design clothes for women. They design clothes to serve the fantasy that revolves around how women should dress — like an apsara (celestial nymph). And as a woman, who has to abide by societal expectations, I am drawn towards designing clothing that serves women. Anything that makes us feel good should be enough — it should be about what we want. But women are conditioned when it comes to dressage; we need to figure out on our own what makes us look and feel good. The womenswear collection that we launched recently is not essentially perceived as “sexy”. But who decides what sexy is? A man’s gaze? A man’s fantasy of how women should look? A capitalist society’s fantasy of how women should look? And why are we continuously subscribing to it?

RS: I was telling Disha [Patil, the photographer] that [the societal expectation around women is that their interpretation of] beauty should not be path-breaking; it should not disturb the pre-existing aesthetics that’ve been established in society. For everybody, but for women particularly, fashion is supposed to be aspirational. And it is supposed to open doors and help them to say, “I have a right, I have money, I have taste, I have power, I am beautiful” instead of simply helping them to say, “I am me, I am plain, I am myself and these are my views.” Do you know how rare that is? Because women are not supposed to make these statements. Women are not supposed to apply their mind. For many, a woman’s beauty is just what you…

SL: …see.

RS: I design for women who are comfortable in their skin and with their flaws, their intelligence, their sense of nostalgia, their approach to life, with being who they are; who are beautiful, inside and out. Are you going to open the door for her just because she walks in being herself, isn’t that audacious? But then that doesn’t serve a purpose for fashion. Because if you allow people to be comfortable with who they are, then fashion can not be marketed to create desire and you’re going to be talking to a very small group of people.

SL: Also with women’s clothing, I feel there are so many layers involved, and like you said, there’s history, there’s nostalgia, there’s purpose. Two inches can make so much of a difference. Just two inches down the neckline or two inches up your skirts — it starts in school — and there is a perception that’s attached to it! Your skirt should exactly land at a certain level, and to break from it is definitely considered audacious.

Quarter started with menswear. Somya, what led you to branch out into womenswear? And what led you, Rina, to get into menswear?

SL: Rina put it very rightly; as a woman, when you’re designing for women, there’s a lot of responsibility that comes in and one has to navigate through all of these layers. ​​Each woman I design for is a representation of so many generations of women who have fought to establish and break boundaries. For example, a conversation that pops up every now and then is about pockets. We have had to fight for pockets, the size of our bag, the depth of our neckline. Everything has to be reasoned because we live in a society that has something to say in respect to everything that we wear. Our capitalist society breeds the need to consume, to produce, to want more. It's a system of growth and in such a system, insecurities are bred to have people purchase more to feel better about themselves. Women are made to pursue an impossible ideal. When I entered this room, the first thing that I mentioned to Rina was that I don’t think I’m photogenic. It has been drilled into my head because my face is round, I’m not beautiful.

RS: But you’re so beautiful…

SL: Thank you! See — women help me to accept myself. I want the woman who wears Quarter to feel powerful and embrace her idea of femininity. I want her to feel sexy. But I do not want all the societal notions that have been established year after year to be attached to that; it’s my consumer who decides what is sexy to them. For me to break away from that idea took me time. Sabina [Chopra, fashion consultant and industry veteran] had a role to play here. So it was Sabina actually who came after our first trial for Gen-Next and suggested that I make womenswear. Initially, I said no, and then we had a discussion about why I felt like I couldn’t. And I told her that I lacked the confidence to do so and that I wasn’t confident in my own skin.

RS: By the way, all creatives have imposter syndrome.

SL: They do?

RS: Generally, the idea that you’re never good enough and that you have to live with it. No matter how many years you do this, you will still feel like you are not good enough.

Somya, you mentioned that some of your menswear customers were women who were interested in buying the straight cut pants and the handwoven khadi denim. Do you think that fluidity in consumer patterns pushed you towards womenswear?

SL: I think that was also what Sabina felt because she told me, “I don’t know if you’re able to see it but you have a very strong feminine gaze to things, and you might as well apply it for women.

RS: Eka is a point of view. It’s a lifestyle. Many a time, people would look at a piece and ask,“Menswear hain kya?” (Is it menswear?) Earlier on, I used to be asked this question all the time because there was no embellishment. The cuts were also kind of straightforward. And then I thought, “Why not make menswear.” And I started doing the same kind of clothes I did for women but for men. Be comfortable in your skin, wear for the weather, wear for your personality, wear for your job, wear things that you can wear in and wear out. Men don’t usually buy my womenswear, except some silk kurtas, but the women buy the menswear.

What’s your take on the cut-and-paste approach to handicrafts?

RS: If you ask me what I do that’s path-breaking and that’s engineering design, I perhaps would say, “Actually, nothing”. Did I innovate anything? The block makers and printers have been at it for years. I just look at it through my perspective. That’s what John Berger says, right? Nobody else sees what you see. That’s exactly what it is. And it takes a little while for you to understand that and stand your own ground. This is my point of view and it applies to craft as well. If you simply resell without changing anything about it, then isn’t the market for that a craft mela? And how much do we buy handicrafts for at these melas? In the end, it would cost you 1,000 rupees a metre maximum. Is that what a craft that takes about six different hands to make is worth? Is that what you pay them for? How much is that, barely 10 dollars? So, no, you have to elevate it. And how do you elevate it? It’s not a debate about the artisan and the designer. I really want to call it out. Designers can’t exist without the artisan, and how do artisans grow without designers? I’m not saying that I’m directing them. Whereas the gaze that I provide — how I render it, how I reconstruct the idea of that craft and create something else out of it — will elevate it.

The handloom melas are not elevating the crafts. But I love the idea of crafts being available at melas and emporiums. I love looking at so many things in one place. There was the Indira Gandhi movement, the Martand Singh movement, but what is the outcome? There are piles of amazing crafts collecting dust. Nothing is going to come out of it unless the younger generation has a take on it, unless they want it to be cool or wear it their way and take it forward into the future. The nostalgia of the past amounts to nothing. Romancing the past is great, so long as an interesting idea comes from there to be taken into the future.

At the launch of Quarter’s first collection at the National Crafts Museum, one of the  goals Somya spoke about was to make her handlooms look as consistent as mill-made fabrics. How does blurring the distinction between handmade and machine-made finesse play into both your works?

RS: For example, ikat is such a dexterous craft. Painstakingly time-consuming. Now take a double ikat. The weaver has to be able to measure it down to millimetres. Ikat also has different kinds of languages, one is Sambalpuri. Toh choti tribal areas mein mostly what happens is that the tribes stick to one or two motifs (In smaller tribal areas, the tribes stick to one or two motifs). The shankh (conch shell) and dancing woman motifs are associated with the Sambalpuri ikat. Why build another bridge when you have one that’s functional? With dexterous crafts like these, which are exorbitant for the right reasons, the weaver has to have the skills of a trained mathematician to know that these yarns will take the colour to this depth, these are how these modern dyes are going to react to each other. It’s a craft that has been improvised over years. And how long does it take to make a screen and use it to replicate the motifs?

I think crafts, like Somya said, could be made to look mill-made but you have to create something which is adding merit. So what does a designer do? A designer makes that craft desirable again, and makes the machine stand away from the craft and create it in such a way that you say, “How else will you do it? You can’t do it on the screen because the colours will not be filled in evenly.” Here [she points to an Eka block-printed dress], there are about 80 blocks used. As we went up, we kept reducing the blocks and then I told the artisans, let’s colour it in the way you would if you coloured it by hand. You can use this process to colour it at your own discretion and create art whereas when you do a screenprint the colours and motifs will look exactly the same. People who understand this will understand the imperfection, will understand the rawness that there is in the design, and will understand that, yes, this is crafted by somebody’s hands, and therefore it is different from what a machine can do. Unless we are able to create that distinction, I don’t know how long an ikat will survive. Only a few connoisseurs who know what the craft is will pay for it, maybe for a sari or a trousseau.

SL: I agree. The discussion that we were having was about how a lot of these textiles at the museum — because of the finesse and quality they offer, or the finishing — they could almost be confused for mill-made fabric. That made me question the logic that goes, “Craft hain, imperfections toh bahut honge” (“It’s handicraft, it will have many imperfections”). Now, the ones on your clothing are intentional. But I object to using it as an excuse. As you said, the entire story cannot be that it’s handcrafted. I’ll buy it because I like it and because I think it serves my purpose. It makes me feel a certain way. For example, our handmade buttons.

RS: Right, lovely.

SL: In fact, when we were getting them made, the person making them, Naran Bhai, told me, “Thoda upar neeche hai, haath se bana hai, chalega?” (“If it’s a little bent out of shape, it’s made by hand, is it okay?”) and I said, “Aap paise le rahe ho, hum bhi customers se paise le rahe hai, kyu chalega?” (“You are being paid for it, and we are charging customers for the same, so why should this be acceptable?”)

Tell us about how design innovation works in the handicraft sector…

RS: You cannot try to do new things every season. Because you as a designer can change gears, but the artisans cannot. Unko saalon lage hain woh art perfect karne mein (It’s taken them years to perfect their craft). West Bengal is one state that has weavers dexterous enough to switch between yarns. They are able to switch between the 60s, 40s and 100s yarn count. There, somebody who’s extremely skilled at weaving in 300s count and above will never do a 60s count for you. So you cannot innovate. New things at the textile level either happen rarely or they are very expensive. But the truth remains that if I am working with a person in Kota for six seasons, I can clearly say that I am helping sustain a heritage weaving technique with a GI tag, right? There’s cotton-silk that I weave with 200s count in three villages in West Bengal, and I’ve been using it again and again in different formats for menswear and womenswear.

SL: I’m going to say something controversial: innovation has its limits. When we are working with artisans, I cannot continuously innovate. I can bring in one change that improves the life of that garment or makes the job easier for the artisan working on it. But I cannot bring in countless innovations. It’s one person working on a handloom that they have been using for many years. If I’m doing that, there’s also this other conversation about how authentic that craft is.

RS: To be honest with you, Somya, you will find out that design has to happen. You have to consistently push the boundary as a brand so that people remain interested in you. At some point, you will find the rhythm where you will know that this much of experimentation and innovation works and this much will result in losses. When something new happens on the loom, it takes a few seasons. Not everything that we make on the loom or build blocks for is conducive for production but we have to do it. My R&D is so expensive but I’m not that expensive a brand. I’m a prêt brand. So, it is a crazy situation; you have to realise that about 20 per cent of investment is always going to go into the well that’s called innovation and creativity. But I’m still going to push the boundary and say, try to wear the dress like this or try it in a heavier fabric or with more volume. I am pushing the boundaries through communication, patterns, volume, style, statement…

SL: The audience loved my himroo weaves….

RS: This black square on the golden base is himroo [points to a Quarter brocade belt]?

SL: No, that is tanchoi weave.

RS: Where did you weave tanchoi?

SL: Mubarakpur, in UP.

RS: I know a few people who do good work in Mubarakpur.

SL: So the weavers I work with are not very well-known, Rina. Hum nahin afford kar sakte third-fourth generation ke saath kaam karna (We cannot afford to work with a third- or fourth-generation weaver). So we work with first-generation weavers and what we really spend on is the R&D because, honestly, these are the people who are still learning. So we give them the time to perfect the craft. Chauthi, paanchvi, chhathi baar woh aa jaata hain hamaare pass bankar (After the fourth, fifth or sixth attempt, they are finally able to make something we can use).

RS: Bade weavers toh nahin karte (Well-known weavers will not work with this).

SL: Haan, woh nahin karenge na (Yes, they will not do this).

RS: They’ll put your work on the back-burner.

SL: They will never do it…this is our himroo [points at a Quarter vest].

RS: Oh, beautiful...

SL: By the way, there are two lines that we do with our himroo. The first one is where we work with factory surplus yarns only. Then the second is where we wanted to give a Quarter touch to it. So it’s a mix of tussar silk and mul cotton threads that we work with — very tedious.

RS: Woh cotton ki warping toh karte hi nahin hain (But these weavers don’t set up cotton warps).

SL: Karte hi nahin hain. Aur carbon footprint kitna hota hai abhi. Toh mujhe Bengal se warp kara kar unke pass bhejna para Aurangabad mein. (They don’t. And the carbon footprint is so much nowadays. I had to get the warp set in Bengal and send it to them in Aurangabad.)

Now, because they were also a little rigid about how the weft is going to be twisted, we used an untwisted tussar which, as Rina would know, is [laughing] a very bad business decision. But then again as a new brand, we are having fun. But the second we learnt our lesson, we were like nahin bhai, main karati hoon twisting (...no, we will get tussar yarns twisted ourselves)!

RS: (Laughing) So this is how it happens. For example, I worked with this block maker for years now, unka toh apne aap phone aa jata hain ki didi kaam hain? (...he calls me to ask if I have work for him.) Because a certain amount of work is needed. Toh bahut tod phod ke alag-alag tareeke se blocks banate hain. Jab karna shuru karte paanch ghanta lagta hain ek metre karne mein. Ab woh production mein toh hum logon ka rona aa jata hain, woh hota hi nahin (He uses various methods to make blocks. Once they start printing, we realise it’s taken five hours to finish printing one metre of fabric. Moving it into production becomes difficult)...

SL: This is why we have to co-create.

RS: It has to make money. It has to be worth their effort. Aap ye toh nahin bol sakte, arre yeh mere costing mein nahin aa raha hai toh 200 rupees kam karo (You can’t tell them, “Hey, this is not fitting my budget, please reduce it by 200 rupees”). In Japan, there is no way a textile will come to the facility without being washed. The moment the fabric is received, it’s recorded, washed, pleated. Systems are set that way. The artisans should not have to do this. The conditions they sit and work in, the intelligence and dedication they put into their work, the meditative state they are in when they’re working…it’s really beautiful. I don’t want to sell it cheap, really. It is a Herculean task.

Threads That Bind: Sustainability and Business