S. Ravichandran
Pillaiyarpalayam, Kanchipuram · 34 years · 2 looms
Third generation on the same pit loom. Weaves the house arakku and nothing else.
On the loom now — Arakku Rudraksham · pick 41,200 of 62,000
Handloom silk sarees made to order by 42 weaver families. Each one takes between 18 and 40 days on a pit loom, and we tell you whose hands it passed through.
Six sarees came off the looms this Margazhi. Every one is made to order, and the price includes a matching blouse length.
S. Ravichandran, Pillaiyarpalayam, Kanchipuram · 26 days at the loom
Lakshmi Venkatesan, Arani · 34 days at the loom
K. Murugan, Sirumugai, Coimbatore · 19 days at the loom
P. Selvi, Ayyampettai, Kanchipuram · 18 days at the loom
R. Dhanalakshmi, Arani · 29 days at the loom
G. Sundaram, Pillaiyarpalayam, Kanchipuram · 24 days at the loom
Body and border are two different warps on two different beams. Nothing sews them together — the wefts are looped through each other by hand, pick after pick, and the join outlives the saree.
3,024 arakku ends, 20/22 denier mulberry silk, dressed on the loom in one length.
Each weft turns back on itself and hooks through the turn of the other, one pick apart.
1,776 ends carrying zari, a nine-inch border on a separate beam at its own tension.
It is the slowest way there is to make a saree. A plain body advances about a metre a day; a korvai body with a nine-inch border advances closer to sixty centimetres.
Mulberry silk, 20/22 denier, twisted in Kanchipuram
Warp ends across a 48-inch width
Days at the loom for one saree
Gold on silver-gilt tested zari, Silk Mark certified
A Kanchipuram saree comes off the loom in one piece: pallu, body and the blouse length you cut off at home. Here it is at true proportion, 1.15 metres across the warp.
Heaviest zari. Woven last, on a separate warp joined by petni.
Plain or vaira oosi, with the korvai border down both selvedges.
Woven on, cut off at home. Included in every price.
The korvai border runs the full length of both selvedges — 12.6 metres of it on every saree. Nine-yard madisar sarees are woven to 8.2 metres on the same warp, to order.
42 families across Kanchipuram, Arani and Sirumugai, on 68 pit looms. Each saree carries its weaver's name on the selvedge tag.
Thari — the pit loom, in elevation
Pillaiyarpalayam, Kanchipuram · 34 years · 2 looms
Third generation on the same pit loom. Weaves the house arakku and nothing else.
On the loom now — Arakku Rudraksham · pick 41,200 of 62,000
Arani · 22 years · 3 looms
Korvai specialist. Interlocks border to body by hand, one shuttle change every three picks.
On the loom now — MS Blue Mayil Chakram · pallu, day 29 of 34
Sirumugai, Coimbatore · 19 years · 2 looms
Runs a two-loom shed with his brother. Their vaira oosi stripes are the finest we stock.
On the loom now — Manthulir Vaira Oosi · body, day 11 of 19
And 39 more families, from a single loom in a back room in Ayyampettai to a nine-loom shed on the Arani road.
Lookbook, issue 04
Six sarees photographed over two December mornings in Kanchipuram, in the temple corridors and courtyards where they were woven.
View the lookbook“My mother's wedding saree came from Pillaiyarpalayam in 1984. Forty years on, mine came from the same street, and I know the weaver's name.”
Anitha Krishnamoorthy — Mylapore, Chennai · bought the Kuyil Kazhuthu Thazhampoo