Thanks a million for posting! As a Kanchipuram native(can trace lineage all the way up to 5 generations at least), this was totally unexpected and a pleasant surprise. I have visited one of these Co-op looms and it's mindblowing how to this day the Kanchi Pattu(silk-Tamizh) is made with a handloom. aptly named handicraft. of course, the piece de resistance is the Varadharaja Perumal Kovil which has some of the best and well maintained sculptures on the planet.
The sad part? This is just one piece of heritage among countless which have already been lost or haven't got a voice to save them. Just like Kancheepuram, nearly every district has a rich heritage in cuisine and fabric which is hundreds of years old. A lot of it was just lost to history because it became commercially nonviable to preserve and so much of it is disappearing in front of our eyes while we do nothing :(
> Yet, the market for "Indian Luxury" is booming globally. We see European houses acting as colonial curators of Indian heritage: Prada rebranding the Kolhapuri chappal for ₹84,500 ($930); Gucci selling the common kurta as an 'exotic kaftan' for the price of a small car; and Dior releasing a ₹18,180,000 ($200,000) coat dripping in Lucknowi Mukaish work without a whisper of credit to the artisans. The global appetite for the aesthetic is ravenous. But in Kanchipuram, the very hands that feed this hunger are vanishing.
The Western colonial imperial system never truly went away, it simply morphed into an opaque inscrutable machinery to make it palatable to its own highly refined taste. An empire of human rights.
It's India's State and Local Governments are promoting this - most artisans that manufacturing these goods are doing so as part of a cooperative as Khadi and MSME Cooperatives is a major pillar for Indian politics and economic development, along with One District One Product [0] in order to build a heritage consumer goods industry similar to what Japan did.
It's also something that is deeply personal for Narendra Modi and Amit Shah [1] as they started their political careers climbing up the cooperative ladder - they were able to turn Gujarat from being a Congress only state to a BJP only state by co-opting cooperatives in the dairy industry [2]. And in Kancheepuram's case it's an extremely important industry in TN.
Furthemore, if Prada or Chanel buys Indian heritage artisan goods and gives it the luxury veneer, it helps MSMEs and khadi cooperatives demand better terms when wholesaling light manufactured products.
Finally, at a personal level, much of my family is associated with Khadi and Cooperative industries - they are one of the only ways to build medium or even high value industries while giving participants some degree of agency. The profits of khadi goods being sold at high margins ends up in the hands of cooperative members and cooperatives tend to re-invest in capacity building or subsidizing new entrants. This is why you see cooperative banks dot all of India.
This is a greatly researched article, and the site is just awesome!
Kanchipuram Saree has a rich history, and I learned so much more by reading this article.
I am intrigued by the Kanchipuram saree and have dreamed about owning one. The digital ledger is a unique idea – if authenticity is established, it would be easy to invest in this as art piece.
You don't need a digital ledger - these are ODOP goods [0] so it's fairly straigtforward to identify authenticity based on the wholeseller's GI tag [1].
GI Tagging for ODOP products is taken extremely seriously as the products associated with ODOP tend to be associated with locally powerful khadi cooperatives and because this is a personal project of Modi and Shah as they started their political careers in Khadi Cooperatives and Amit Shah is the Cooperation (as in Cooperatives and Khadi) Minister, so complaints tend to be taken seriously. Additionally, textile cooperatives are extremely important in TN as well, and the TN government closely enforces it's GIs as well as building their own e-commerce platform and showrooms for selling cooperative goods [2].
That was a pretty fun article. Nice use of parallax scrolling and everything.
An amusing personal connection is that my wife wore a sari for our wedding (I'm from Chennai) and I wore a sherwani that she, a graphic designer, designed with Dall-E's assistance. A friend of ours knows an embroiderer in Bangalore who then put the design to the coat. Loved it, to be honest: https://x.com/arjie/status/1855328068883353665
Saris (not quite from Kanchipuram - American fabric) and Thinking Machines!
Amazing article, and love the storytelling format. Checked the altermag.com, I wonder why I didn't stumble upon it before. Easily one of the best websites I visited in recent times.
Really? I personally found it super distracting and too flashy. I mean I do like the style and its vibe, but not super great for actually reading stuff. But its also probably my tastes (still think HN is peak design so)
really impressive work!!! the depth of research and the way the website presents it are both well executed.
i grew up in erode, a major handloom hub in tamilnadu.. so this hits close to home. research like this helps preserve and better understand regional textile ecosystems that often don’t get enough structured documentation.
> better understand regional textile ecosystems that often don’t get enough structured documentation
I recommend looking at a district's website or that if the associated ministry.
They tend to go in-depth into the history of their ODOP and GI goods, as can be seen with Kancheepuram Saris [0][1].
Visiting Khadi and Cooperative showrooms and export promotion events is also a treat - whenever I'm in Delhi I'd always make some time to visit the state and khadi bhavans in Luyten's Delhi to grab gifts and look at heritage goods.
I hate it when people mispronounce/misspell Yazhi. It's pronounced using the the most unique feature of the language - "zh" instead of "L" just like Tamil itself (it's actually Thamizh). The original wikipedia page:
I'm coming around to the idea that we _should_ really be using "l" or maybe "r" instead of "zh" for the ழ. At least it's closer in pronunciation and there's a chance someone can work their way to it. Zh is like "we don't have an exact match so we'll repurpose a letter we don't use". It has no phonetic relevance.
I agree 100%. And like insisting that sentences shouldn't end with a preposition, or "you should say GNU/Linux, not Linux", it's no way to make friends and influence people.
Thanks a million for posting! As a Kanchipuram native(can trace lineage all the way up to 5 generations at least), this was totally unexpected and a pleasant surprise. I have visited one of these Co-op looms and it's mindblowing how to this day the Kanchi Pattu(silk-Tamizh) is made with a handloom. aptly named handicraft. of course, the piece de resistance is the Varadharaja Perumal Kovil which has some of the best and well maintained sculptures on the planet.
This being one such exhibit https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianHistory/comments/1j75nc0/the_...
Brings back my joyous/carefree youth where I would spend summer vacations ambling around the massive temple complex.
The sad part? This is just one piece of heritage among countless which have already been lost or haven't got a voice to save them. Just like Kancheepuram, nearly every district has a rich heritage in cuisine and fabric which is hundreds of years old. A lot of it was just lost to history because it became commercially nonviable to preserve and so much of it is disappearing in front of our eyes while we do nothing :(
> Yet, the market for "Indian Luxury" is booming globally. We see European houses acting as colonial curators of Indian heritage: Prada rebranding the Kolhapuri chappal for ₹84,500 ($930); Gucci selling the common kurta as an 'exotic kaftan' for the price of a small car; and Dior releasing a ₹18,180,000 ($200,000) coat dripping in Lucknowi Mukaish work without a whisper of credit to the artisans. The global appetite for the aesthetic is ravenous. But in Kanchipuram, the very hands that feed this hunger are vanishing.
The Western colonial imperial system never truly went away, it simply morphed into an opaque inscrutable machinery to make it palatable to its own highly refined taste. An empire of human rights.
It's India's State and Local Governments are promoting this - most artisans that manufacturing these goods are doing so as part of a cooperative as Khadi and MSME Cooperatives is a major pillar for Indian politics and economic development, along with One District One Product [0] in order to build a heritage consumer goods industry similar to what Japan did.
It's also something that is deeply personal for Narendra Modi and Amit Shah [1] as they started their political careers climbing up the cooperative ladder - they were able to turn Gujarat from being a Congress only state to a BJP only state by co-opting cooperatives in the dairy industry [2]. And in Kancheepuram's case it's an extremely important industry in TN.
Furthemore, if Prada or Chanel buys Indian heritage artisan goods and gives it the luxury veneer, it helps MSMEs and khadi cooperatives demand better terms when wholesaling light manufactured products.
Finally, at a personal level, much of my family is associated with Khadi and Cooperative industries - they are one of the only ways to build medium or even high value industries while giving participants some degree of agency. The profits of khadi goods being sold at high margins ends up in the hands of cooperative members and cooperatives tend to re-invest in capacity building or subsidizing new entrants. This is why you see cooperative banks dot all of India.
[0] - https://www.investindia.gov.in/one-district-one-product
[1] - https://theprint.in/opinion/politically-correct/rahul-gandhi...
[2] - https://scroll.in/article/858585/amul-is-now-a-congress-mukt...
This is a greatly researched article, and the site is just awesome!
Kanchipuram Saree has a rich history, and I learned so much more by reading this article.
I am intrigued by the Kanchipuram saree and have dreamed about owning one. The digital ledger is a unique idea – if authenticity is established, it would be easy to invest in this as art piece.
You don't need a digital ledger - these are ODOP goods [0] so it's fairly straigtforward to identify authenticity based on the wholeseller's GI tag [1].
GI Tagging for ODOP products is taken extremely seriously as the products associated with ODOP tend to be associated with locally powerful khadi cooperatives and because this is a personal project of Modi and Shah as they started their political careers in Khadi Cooperatives and Amit Shah is the Cooperation (as in Cooperatives and Khadi) Minister, so complaints tend to be taken seriously. Additionally, textile cooperatives are extremely important in TN as well, and the TN government closely enforces it's GIs as well as building their own e-commerce platform and showrooms for selling cooperative goods [2].
[0] - https://www.investindia.gov.in/one-district-one-product
[1] - https://kancheepuram.nic.in/about-district/gi-tag-product-ka...
[2] - https://www.cooptex.com/
That was a pretty fun article. Nice use of parallax scrolling and everything.
An amusing personal connection is that my wife wore a sari for our wedding (I'm from Chennai) and I wore a sherwani that she, a graphic designer, designed with Dall-E's assistance. A friend of ours knows an embroiderer in Bangalore who then put the design to the coat. Loved it, to be honest: https://x.com/arjie/status/1855328068883353665
Saris (not quite from Kanchipuram - American fabric) and Thinking Machines!
My sister and mother insisted on having Kanchipuram silk sarees.
Every upper middle class woman had to have them, back in the day.
Amazing article, and love the storytelling format. Checked the altermag.com, I wonder why I didn't stumble upon it before. Easily one of the best websites I visited in recent times.
Really? I personally found it super distracting and too flashy. I mean I do like the style and its vibe, but not super great for actually reading stuff. But its also probably my tastes (still think HN is peak design so)
It toon me two tries to actually read this because the first time the scrolling to get to the article irritated me so much I closed the page.
really impressive work!!! the depth of research and the way the website presents it are both well executed.
i grew up in erode, a major handloom hub in tamilnadu.. so this hits close to home. research like this helps preserve and better understand regional textile ecosystems that often don’t get enough structured documentation.
thanks for sharing.
> better understand regional textile ecosystems that often don’t get enough structured documentation
I recommend looking at a district's website or that if the associated ministry.
They tend to go in-depth into the history of their ODOP and GI goods, as can be seen with Kancheepuram Saris [0][1].
Visiting Khadi and Cooperative showrooms and export promotion events is also a treat - whenever I'm in Delhi I'd always make some time to visit the state and khadi bhavans in Luyten's Delhi to grab gifts and look at heritage goods.
[0] - https://www.indiahandloombrand.gov.in/pages/downloadFile/kan...
[1] - https://hepcindia.com/gihandloom_products/index.html
damn that’s one greatly designed website.
On the other hand, my parents did not realise they needed to scroll down to read the article. :)
I hate it when people mispronounce/misspell Yazhi. It's pronounced using the the most unique feature of the language - "zh" instead of "L" just like Tamil itself (it's actually Thamizh). The original wikipedia page:
https://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%B3%E0...
I'm coming around to the idea that we _should_ really be using "l" or maybe "r" instead of "zh" for the ழ. At least it's closer in pronunciation and there's a chance someone can work their way to it. Zh is like "we don't have an exact match so we'll repurpose a letter we don't use". It has no phonetic relevance.
I agree 100%. And like insisting that sentences shouldn't end with a preposition, or "you should say GNU/Linux, not Linux", it's no way to make friends and influence people.
Whenever someone says "actually", it's hard not to think of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGvw-E4OtOA