Bangalore Dreams: A Factory Sourcing Blog by Fiona Thomson Design
22-01-2008
This
morning a short stroll from our hotel took us to Bangalore's only tourist
attraction, the Botanical Gardens. The 20 minute walk was the maximum that any
sane person would travel on foot and took us past many humorous sights, such as
goats tied to lampposts, happily grazing. The fact that there was usually a
restaurant next door advertising 'goat curry', I'm sure, had nothing at all to
do with this! We strode up and down uneven pavements, of the variety that
certain 'no-blame' claims companies would love and through the choking fumes of
the traffic found the gardens. Unfortunately, being winter, only a few
water-lilies and a lot of strange, exotic trees were in evidence. After a
couple of hours admiring trees, the odd monkey (with head in hands – obviously
having an off-day!!!) and chipmunk-spotting, we returned to our hotel to await
the car sent by Chaitra Prints.
As
with Apsara Silks, Chaitra Prints stood out when I saw them
at TexWorld in Paris, due to the Western styling of their
designs. Pradeep M.G. meets us at their Bangalore Head Office
and tells us that the company was formed in 1984 by his father and
brother, who are both fabric technologists. After gaining valuable
experience of the Western market whilst working in India for a Glasgow
based textile company, they decided to import raw silk fibre from
China, dyeing, processing and weaving it at their factory outside Bangalore.
Pradeep and his brother then joined the partnership, after gaining degrees at
Bangalore University in Business Studies and Garment Production Technology
respectively. The company now has the design and production facilities
to produce finished products for the apparel and home furnishing
markets and exports worldwide.
Pradeep has
covered the conference table with a mountain of beadings
and embroideries for our attention – just a small selection of Chaitra's range
and explains that specials can also be commissioned. It's unusual for designs
to be discontinued and the cupboards around the room contain hundreds
of further designs, dating as far back as the company's earliest
years.
Each plain
silk is produced in a myriad of beautiful colours and, by the end of our
meeting we are weighed down with shade cards of their range of silk organzas,
taffetas and dupions. Like Apsara Silks, Chaitra
maintain quality consistency by using European beads and
dyes and all hand-beading is knotted after every third bead for
strength (it's the bane of most designers’ lives to constantly be picking up
beads that have fallen off an imported garment!) Unfortunately, only
warehousing and quality control prior to shipping is done at the Bangalore
office, so we are unable to marvel at the skill of the embroiderers and
beaders but, we can drool over the 60 luscious shades of power and hand-woven
dupions that are always kept in stock in the warehouse.
By the end
of our meeting, we have whittled down the numerous contenders and commissioned
samples for our new range, leaving first patterns for Chaitra's technicians to
work with. After introducing us to the other family members, who head the
Chaitra Prints team, Pradeep kindly puts the car sent for us at our disposal
until the evening.
Revived
by a short foot soak at our hotel, we battle with Bangalore traffic
on our way to another ultra modern shopping centre. Being India, there are
plenty of high quality cotton and linen garments on display – unfortunately,
young Indian women have a very slender frame and none of the tops that I try on
will accommodate my size 16 bust (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)
There
is an abundance of high quality menswear – candy striped Van Heusen shirts
and Italian suits in particular, and we also stumble across the obligatory
Marks & Spencer, complete with 'Per Una' range labelled at UK price levels
in sterling, as though we were in Basildon high street! It seems
rather strange when you've just been calculating rupees to the £ in the
previous store!
Most
clothing is well finished and comes in at around a half of UK prices.
After stumbling through a pitch black department store when the power fails,
due to the rainstorm outside, we decide to try out the food hall. A
surprisingly varied and tasty choice of pizzas, seafood and Chinese and local
delights entice us. Ignore the fact that the streets outside are dusty and
chaotic, the outlets are extremely clean and hygienic – I have yet to
see staff in KFC and McDonalds handling food with gloves!
By now the
downpour has stopped and it's time to unwind in our favourite rock bar on MG
road. By midnight we are back at our hotel, after surviving the
fastest tuc-tuc ride ever, careering around corners on two wheels to the
accompaniment of a Boom Box in the back! Our woolly balaclava wearing
driver, Absul (the evenings are chilly in Bangalore!), kindly gives us his card
with mobile phone number in case we need his services in the
future. Maybe it's the cocktails, but I'm sure my knees don't normally
shake like this! Tomorrow our adventure will be over, but more on our final
experiences of Bangalore…
Fiona x
Fiona Thomson Design
