During my tenure as an incubate at NDBI – National Design Business Incubation (supported by NID and Ministry of Science & Technology) I had developed a special textile – Multisensory textiles, during 2005-06. It has some unique properties and during those days such textile were completely new.
I had travelled to various places within Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Pondicherry, Tamil Nādu etc. to collect information about organic cotton farming, natural and non-violent Silk, vegetable dying & printing and natural finishing & coating.
In the beginning, I had visited cotton farms to know their farming process, as you know, generally, the fertilizers and pesticides are being used in the cotton farming are with hazardous chemicals, so the challenge was how to grow cotton without such chemicals. After much research I derived a strategy – I kept a small piece of land idle for a year or two, literally, we have not grown anything on that land, we just applied some organic fertilizers on it, idea was to remove all the chemical particles from soil automatically with rain water. After it, we have planted cotton seeds, nurtured it with organic fertilizers and organic pesticides, both were completely chemical-less – I have used cow dunk, Indian Lilac etc. This is how the cotton has grown, it went for further processing.
I had used handloom to develop fabric, few artisans were located in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. I was amazed to see such talent in those artisans, they created excellent fabric thorough handlooms! Ones the grey fabric developed, I applied block prints on it using vegetable (organic) colors, and afterwards, sent the fabric for vegetable color dying. After a first wash, my fabric was almost developed, however, I wanted to apply a coating with fragrance/anti-bacterial treatment/anti-odor treatment/anti-mosquito treatment etc. I found a company which provided organic materials for various such finishing treatments. Finally, the finishing treatment is done, fabric is washed and ready to use. I had launched kids wear with very light prints or plan dyed fabrics, bed linen with different style of prints and dying effects, night wear using my multi-sensory textiles.
