Cotton Cottage is a leading Indian clothing brand that creates handcrafted apparel made with indigenous dyeing and printing techniques. Traditional and authentic hand block printing is the brand’s signature craft, adored by their customers all over the world.
Recently, Cotton Cottage talked about the art of genuine hand block printing and how they craft authentic block printed products. They stressed on the fact that the word ‘handmade’ is not just a tag they use for marketing their brand. It is the principal manner of their product creation. They have a huge network of artisans all across India with whom they collaborate for their ever-renewing collections. These artisans are skilled in the traditional craft of woodblock printing and it is their artistry that breathes life into all their products.
The brand has highlighted that every print on every product of theirs is done by hand by their master artisans. They revealed that an easy way to spot block prints done by hand is to notice the tiny imperfections in prints and colour shades that are an inevitable part of any handicraft. On the other hand, prints done by the screen-printing method or by using machines are perfectly identical, appearing without any irregularities. But nowadays many brands are passing these screen prints/ machine prints as Block prints and deceiving uninformed customers. Promoting and sharing the essence of human effort and art through their products is very important for Cotton Cottage. The brand is proud that absolutely no part of their creation employs the screen-printing method.
Another fascinating detail shared by Cotton Cottage is that their process of creating any piece of clothing is always in tandem with nature. The brand explained that factors like the place of origin of a product, the softness or hardness of water, the intensity of the heat, wind, and humidity can all impact how a product turns out. They place special emphasis on making sure these factors are always in synchronization with their process so that their clothing turns out perfect in every way. In fact, even if the same print using the same blocks and dyes is created on a cloudy compared to a bright sunny day by the same artisan at the same location, it will yield different results.
The dependency on nature’s ways and finesse of hand printing limits production but keeps the uniqueness intact. No two pieces are ever the same, each singular and distinguished in its own way. To give one perspective, comparing hand block printing and screen printing is the same as comparing a painter’s work of art with a computer’s digital reproduction of the same painting.
With a firm grasp on tradition, artistic skill, human essence, and nature, Cotton Cottage is keen on continuing to create traditional-meets-modern clothing. Supporting India’s indigenous artisans and their art is central to the brand’s functioning.
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