The Story of Bagru

Before the cloth was printed, it was washed. Before it was washed, it was soaked. Before it was soaked, it was prepared with a paste of harda, a dried fruit that opens the fibres just enough to receive colour. Nothing about Bagru was rushed. Everything had its order.

In the village of Bagru, just outside Jaipur, the Chhipa community has been practising this craft for generations. Their tools were wooden blocks, hand carved with motifs drawn from Rajasthan's natural world. Leaves, flowers, geometric forms that echoed the landscape surrounding them. Their dyes came from the earth too. Indigo from the plant. Rust from iron. Black from a mixture of scrap iron and jaggery left to ferment for weeks in clay pots.

The river Sanjaria running through the village was not a backdrop. It was part of the process. Fabric was washed in its waters between each stage, carried back and forth until the cloth became what it was always meant to be.

The result was always earthy, always alive. Colours that looked like they had grown from the ground rather than been applied to cloth.

Because in Bagru, in many ways, they had.