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Why this Singapore-India fashion label made taking care of its artisans a top priority

Mahima Gujral was so moved when she met artisans like block-printers, weavers and tailors that taking care of them through her conscious fashion business Sui became her top priority. She tells CNA Women why her relationships with these “human hands” are so important to her. 

Why this Singapore-India fashion label made taking care of its artisans a top priority

When Mahima Gujral, the founder of Sui, worked with artisans in India, she was reminded of the need to have genuine relationships in the fashion industry. (Photo: Mahima Gujral; Sui)

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Whenever Mahima Gujral goes to New Delhi, India, she spends many hours with the artisans who bring the designs of her sustainable clothing brand Sui to life.

It’s not just because she needs to oversee operations, as the business is based in both Singapore and India. As founder and director of Sui, her main goal is to care for the artisans who work for her.  

The 34-year-old knows the birthdays of most of the artisans, the names of their spouses and children, and even their family circumstances. 

“My artisans aren’t just workers,” said Gujral. “Their hands make clothes come to life, so I have to know them, take care of them, and cherish them.”

GROWING UP WITH A LOVE FOR CRAFTSMANSHIP

Gujral (right) with her Nani, her grandmother, who sewed Indian ethnic clothing for a living. (Photo: Mahima Gujral)

Gujral’s grandmother was a designer and businesswoman who opened a shop making bespoke ethnic women’s wear in India, in 1968. The shop, called Priyadarshini, later became Sue Mue, a luxury fashion label offering Indian ethnic dresses, bridal wear and contemporary designs. 

Gujral’s mother Mohita joined the family business when she came of age. Similarly, the Sui founder herself has been helping Sue Mue build its online presence on the website and social media. 

Her childhood in New Delhi was spent in the workshops her grandmother owned, watching kurtas, saris, and blouses being sewn by hand.  

“Though I was too young to appreciate it at that time, I got to observe how clothes came from a specific source and were crafted by human hands,” Gujral said. 

Gujral (left) and her mother, Mohita, in matching athleisure wear made of organic cotton, one of the ways they incorporate sustainable fashion into their lives. (Photo: Mahima Gujral)

After getting her bachelor’s degree in fashion management at the LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore, Gujral returned to India to help in the family business. She also landed a marketing job at luxury fashion brand Dior.

“It was an exciting time – who wouldn’t be thrilled to work at Dior?” Gujral said. “But I had the worst shopping habits and the least respect for clothes.

“I owned so many items and discarded them easily. I didn’t stop to think about who created the pieces, whose hands weaved the leathers and fabrics together.”

She left Dior three years later and headed to Milan, Italy, for her master’s degree in fashion management at the SDA Bocconi School of Management. The lure of luxury fashion had dimmed by then and Gujral was thinking of following in her grandmother’s footsteps and starting a clothing brand of her own.  

A pivotal moment came in one of her first classes in Milan. A professor asked the class: “Who made your clothes?”

That simple question catapulted her back to her childhood, she said. “I’d see all the clothes around me and I knew: My mum made this sari, my Nani made that kurta, the tailor named Tahir designed that fabric.

“It was then when I knew that whatever fashion business I started, I wanted to place the humans behind the clothes at the forefront.”

KNOWING THE HANDS BEHIND THE FABRICS

Anukriti, one of the textile designers of Sui, with one of the brand’s first block prints, the hibiscus print, at Bagru Textiles. (Photo: Mahima Gujral)

Gujral launched Sui a year after she completed her master’s programme. Sui means needle in Hindi, and Gujral’s vision was to create versatile clothing with minimal environmental impact, in an effort to balance the excess of the fashion industry. 

She told CNA Women that she wanted to create a brand that treated its crafters with respect and considered them family – the artisans’ stories would be a significant part of the clothes themselves.

Every Sui product carries a tag that explains the fabric’s origin, the artisans who made it, where and how the pattern was designed, and a QR code that takes customers behind the scenes to see the process and hands that created it.

One of the collections features fabrics made by the women of WomenWeave, an organisation of weavers that Sui works with. (Photo: CNA/Izza Haziqah)

Gujral herself had to learn about how artisans worked. “I didn’t need to look very far, I knew India is home to some of the finest crafters, so I started there,” she said. 

She discovered WomenWeave on Instagram, a non-profit group of handloom weavers. And through a Sui employee, she learnt about Bagru Textiles, a business run by a fifth-generation artisan whose expertise in block printing was passed down through the generations.

She travelled to the WomenWeave workshop in Maheshwar, a town about a two-hour drive from Indore, a city in west-central India. And she was “blown away”.

“I met women of all ages, from their twenties to their fifties, sitting on the floor or chairs and their hands were doing amazing work weaving all sorts of fabrics,” Gujral said. 

The women told her that working at WomenWeave felt more than a mere job – it was as if they were part of a wholesome and supportive community.

Many of them were responsible for supporting their families, whether as single mothers, caretakers of ill spouses, or daughters caring for elderly parents.

“I knew what empowerment looked like when I saw those women,” Gujral said. “The sounds of the looms, the smells of the natural dyes, the sights of women being in charge – it was wonderful.”

Gujral (second row, second from left) with the female artisans from WomenWeave. (Photo: Mahima Gujral)

Visiting Bagru Textiles, situated in the town of Bagru nestled within the Jaipur district of India, was also enlightening.

“The whole town of Bagru is known for its textiles and block printing,” Gujral said. “It was a real visual treat to visit the area and witness all the designs and crafts all around.” 

There, she met Vijendra Chhipa, a fifth-generation artisanal block printer and owner of the family business, who shared his insights on creating patterns and vibrant colours using block printing.

“In their workshops, barely anything is run by electricity – and not because they couldn’t afford it, but because they want everything to be run by hand,” Gujral said. “Hands create the patterns, hands dry the paint, hands pull the fabrics over the tables – it’s all human hands behind the design.” 

At their first meeting in early 2020, Chhipa’s team shared hot meals with Gujral’s team as they were spending the whole day at Bagru Textiles. 

These were unforgettable moments, Gujral said. 

“They remind me why I wanted to do what I do now and to never forget the relationships along the way. 

“Places like Bagru Textiles and WomenWeave were where hands came together and clothes came to life.”

Those meetings with WomenWeave and Bagru Textiles laid the groundwork for business partnerships for Sui – some of the products feature patterns designed by Bagru Textiles and fabrics made by WomenWeave. 

BRINGING THE HUMAN ELEMENT TO SUI

Today, the Sui workshop, situated in New Delhi, is run by a team of over 10 artisans. This includes skilled master craftsmen who oversee weaving and design, tailors responsible for garment construction, embroiderers who hand-sew designs onto the clothes, and hemmers who adjust the embellishments and embroidery.

The clothes are made from fabrics such as linen, silk, and organic cotton. They cost from around S$20 for keychains and pouches to over S$400 for a silk dress. Most of the prints feature motifs and patterns inspired by nature and the environment and every item is handmade by artisans in India.

“Working with artisans is a blessing for Sui,” Gujral said. “I can communicate with the masters in case I need to check anything, and I can hear directly from them when there are issues they want to raise.” 

Gujral lives in Singapore with her husband and two-year-old daughter, and travels to New Delhi every few months. When she’s there, she spends seven to eight hours a day with her artisans. She checks on their well-being and takes note of areas of improvement in their working conditions. 

“It’s always a process to know what works best for the artisans. When I take care of my artisans, they pour more passion into the clothes they create, and that will impact the wearer in the long run,” she said. 

“The goal is to build something together with sincerity and expertise so that someone else will love and appreciate what we build,” Gujral said. “This will allow others to appreciate and have a deeper understanding of where Sui’s clothes come from.”

CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg.

Source: CNA/iz
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