Thread first

Most clothing labels start with a silhouette and then go looking for fabric to fit it. We do it the other way around. Kritika buys cloth first — from pit looms in Bhagalpur, from the four thousand looms still working in Chanderi, from the women weaving kota doria at home in Kaithoon — and the collection is whatever that cloth wants to become.

This makes us slower and smaller than we would otherwise be. A weaver produces about six metres a day. That number sets the size of every run we make, which is why pieces sell out and do not always come back.

It also means we can tell you exactly where your garment came from. Every product page names the town, the loom type and the dye. If that information is missing, we have not done our job.

We use madder root, natural indigo, myrobalan and iron. These are not stable in the way synthetic dyes are stable — indigo lightens, myrobalan shifts warmer, and no two lots match exactly.

We have stopped treating that as a defect. A garment that looks identical to the one made a year ago was almost certainly not dyed with a plant. Yours will change, and it will keep changing for as long as you wear it.

Everything is cut in small runs in Bengaluru, in the sizes listed on each product page.

We are a small team and we answer our own messages. If something does not fit, or arrives wrong, write to us directly.