By Anna Mariam Ittyerah
The process of making art takes time and our journey has been nothing but a beautiful wild ride. Initially, it was just experimenting at home during the lockdown to keep us sane but then before you knew it, we started a small business. Just like every other line of work, our garment-making process is not that simple due to the numerous list of stages that goes into it.
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The first step is the most fun one! We begin by brainstorming and conducting market research for ideas, which entails scrolling through Pinterest and other brands' websites to discover what's trendy today among the youth. Exploring stores, malls and also reading magazines. We come up with the theme for the season and try to group designs and fabrics that would bind them together to create a good story.
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The second stage involves narrowing our ideas and selecting a few favored features, modifying them, or changing them al-together and creating our own design. We do believe all art is borrowed art. Especially when you're trying to create a casual-chic clothing line.
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The ‘sketching out’ process where we sketch out our shortlisted designs along with creating a detailed technical sheet, after comes the fabric selection which means shopping!
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Our usual go-to place for fabric hunting has always been markets in our city of Namma Bengaluru. We either buy a bulk of beautiful unloved ethnic scraps that are of good quality and color, which are subject to availability. We also source new Indian handcrafted fabrics from trusted vendors and also try to collect sarees from our friends and relatives that they aren't using them anymore due to minor damages or discoloration.
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The next step is pattern making, wherein we create various draft patterns on paper using many tools by using a lot of mathematical calculations, measurements & geometry!
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This stage involves test fitting , where we trace the drafted paper pattern onto a muslin fabric and tailor them . By doing so, we are able to see how the design is progressing to ensure it looks really good and fits us right. Necessary changes are corrected on the paper draft and this is repeated for all sizes. After making sure that the paper patterns are perfect, we trace them on the final fabrics that we’re going to use & cut them out consciously to ensure minimal wastage of fabric.
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Then comes sewing and then finishing which would be like adding trims like buttons & hooks and ironing.
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Next comes comes the photoshoot. Most of the time, we model ourselves or we call upon the models who have offered to volunteer for us. Our customers sometimes pose as well!
Finally, we fix a date for us to introduce our new collection with a planned marketing campaign for website, posts, stories, reels, etc'. What comes next is the actual work part, since we're a made-to-order brand at the moment, we make our products only once the order is placed to reduce inventory wastage crisis that usually happens in the Fashion industry. It us about 2 weeks to fulfil the order from the date it has been placed.
From taking orders individually through DMs to accepting orders in our sleep, making a website has saved our workload by 100x.
As fun and tedious the process is, the feeling when our products get sold out is a different kind of emotion on an indescribable level! The joy, happiness, and pride we receive every time a customer send us pictures of them wearing our garment is like a sugar rush of sorts that drives us to create more.
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