I just can’t get over the cows (and bulls!). They’re everywhere, just wandering around the streets and paths. They park themselves where the mood strikes, regardless of heavy traffic that now has to inch around them.
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Ethical Fashion Blog
Everywhere we went, we noticed women wearing colorful, embroidered outfits that had a long skirt and a hooded waist-length cape. Rather than a fashion craze, it was clear these outfits were designed to function as a modest cover-up worn in public. Who were these ladies? We asked a few times, only to be given the wrong information: they were Jain, they were Parsi. When we arrived at our new co-op in Maheshwar we were pleased to meet some of these ladies in person and find out their real identities. They are Dawoodi Bohra women, a community that is a subsect of Islam.
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We want to thank Hannah Warren, founder and Executive Director of Jhoole, for being such a fabulous host! We spent two lovely days designing in the peaceful town of Maheshwar – best known for the talent of its handloom weavers – in Madhya Pradesh (central India) where Jhoole is located. It was a true relief to escape the chaos of big-city India for a moment; Maheshwar, with a population of just over 20,000, actually feels chill, like a village! We ate home cooked meals and got to know the townspeople a bit.
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Checking into the Panorama Guesthouse, my eyes scanned the lobby walls as I waited for the clerk to record my passport and visa information in his registry book. Imagine my surprise as I looked up at this photo of the establishment’s roof top restaurant and spotted Michelle and Maureen!
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The Ganpati Festival is the annual celebration of Ganesh, the elephant-headed son of gods Shiva and Parvati. During the festival, Ganesh idols are paraded through the streets, on the back of trucks or perhaps camel carts, and brought to makeshift stages set up throughout the town. These are a few images of the Ganpati Festival we came across this week.
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For me – up at 7 AM to watch the sun rise like a ball of fury over the lake. For the first time in years the lakes are full here — rain, rain and more rain has turned this town lush with beautiful shades of green. Breakfast while e-mailing (yes, our dear, dear guest house owner installed wifi for which I am ever so thankful) consists of “egg cheese toast” and a Starbucks coffee travel packet necessary to wake me up. Off to the co-op by 9 AM, running various errands along the way.
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I arrived on Wednesday morning at our co-op in Rajasthan to find our Spring 2011 collection well on its way toward completion, since Maureen was here two weeks prior and did a spectacular job getting things started!
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My second day here at the cooperative in Mumbai were were eating lunch with some of the ladies and the topic of shorts came up. You see, shorts are the new hot fashion item here. All the ladies had a pair. But India is quite a modest country, and showing too much skin is taboo. Shorts are too revealing to wear in public, except in the upscale districts of Mumbai where the rich and famous reside. So while all the ladies had a new pair of shorts, they all admitted to only wearing them in their own homes. They never actually wear them out of the house.
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This week, Taylor has been creating our Fall/Winter 2011 catalog. As you can imagine, it is quite an endeavor: photographing the samples, writing descriptions, designing the layout and then using Photoshop to tediously put it all together. For the inside cover, we decided to make a collage from pictures I took last summer in India of the women who sew our clothes at the cooperatives. I think it’s a great idea, because, as a shopper, how often do you actually get to see a picture of the person who made the clothes you buy?!?!
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I’ve had 3 full days now back in India (last time I was here it was 2004) and the main thing to report is that it is rainy. It’s monsoon season which means that it rains almost all the time and when it seems like the rain has let up and you go outside, it’s actually still raining, only a bit lighter.