ok but can we talk about handloom for a second 🧵🇮🇳
so Colonel Rajyavardhan Rathore showed up at Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur for National Handloom Day and said something that honestly hit different —
"Next time you buy handloom, don't just wear it. Share its picture and the story behind it too. Because every post, reel, and story can give a new identity to a weaver's art."
and i haven't stopped thinking about it since.
here's the thing about handloom that nobody talks about enough 🧶
when a weaver sits at their loom, they're not just making fabric. they're doing something that their grandmother taught their mother who taught them. they're working with patterns that are sometimes hundreds of years old. they're putting in hours of physical, skilled, creative labor to make something that a machine genuinely cannot replicate.
and then it ends up in a store with no story attached to it.
no weaver's name. no village of origin. no explanation of the technique. just a price tag.
the thing colonel rathore is saying is actually radical if you think about it 👀
he's saying: you — yes you, with your instagram and your pinterest and your tumblr — have the power to change that.
one post about the Bagru block print you just bought. one reel showing the texture of your Kota Doria dupatta. one story where you actually explain what Ajrakh means and where it comes from.
that's not small. that's a weaver's craft entering a network of thousands of people who had never heard of it before.
the Local to Global thing is actually happening 🌍
under PM Modi's push for Vocal for Local, Indian handloom exports have genuinely grown. international designers are collaborating with Indian weavers. people in Paris and New York are wearing Chanderi and Pochampally and Maheshwari and actually knowing what those words mean.
this isn't nostalgia. this is a living industry finding its global audience.
so what can you actually do 🌿
next purchase: actively look for handloom. emporiums, certified sites, weaver cooperatives. do the slightly extra work.
when you wear it: take the photo. but then actually research what you bought. what's the weave called? what state? what's the history?
when you post it: put that information in the caption. name the craft. tag the source if you can find them. let people learn something.
your aesthetic content can also be meaningful content. those two things are not mutually exclusive.
India has over 35 lakh handloom weavers. second largest employment group in the country after agriculture. these are real people with real skill and real economic stakes.
they don't need pity. they need visibility.
and that? that we can actually give them.
🧵 wear it. photograph it. tell its story. that's the whole assignment.
