The season of scarves is here! Scarves, stoles and shawls
are beckoning you from decorated store windows. You have used them all, you
know the types – infinity, ring, head, bandanna, neck, hip and skinny made of
cotton, silk, pashmina, linen or cashmere, woven or knitted. You like them as
a male or female user.
Maybe you are not a user. But I like to think that you may still benefit from this piece of information about Tangaliya Shawl. You may wonder, how? Simple. Knowledge is power.If you are looking for a unique product to sell on line through your eBay or Amazon merchant account, this might be a right fit for you. The product has its own competitive advantages too.
Maybe you are not a user. But I like to think that you may still benefit from this piece of information about Tangaliya Shawl. You may wonder, how? Simple. Knowledge is power.If you are looking for a unique product to sell on line through your eBay or Amazon merchant account, this might be a right fit for you. The product has its own competitive advantages too.
Here are 5 Ws of Tangaliya -who, what, where, when, why in a reporting style I am currently learning:
During my 2013 trip to India, I met at Ahmadabad, Gujarat
State an expert craftsman of textile weaving who was engaged in production of a
unique artisanal item called Tangaliya Shawl. His name is Rathod Babubhai
Muljibhai. The purpose of that meeting was to get a few samples to test its marketability and consumer response in USA.
Rathod Babubhai lives in Dodara village of Wadhwan,
Surendranagar. He belongs to a community called Dangasia. There are no records to know the exact
genesis of this community. But the folklore attributes its emergence to a man
and woman of shepherd and weaver communities respectively. In local language
these communities are known as Bharvads
and Vankars. Those two different
community members dared to love and marry each other against accepted social
norms of their family groups. As a
punishment village chieftains ostracized those two sweethearts. Old stories of
the community continue by word of mouth.The children
born to those lovers started weaving a special type of cloth piece called ‘tingalio.’Both community members started using it. “Tingaliyo”
translated to English would roughly mean ‘what is hung.’ That small piece of
woven cloth was usually hung from the waist. There are different versions of
the story with minor variations. This is estimated to be around seven hundred
years ago.
Over a period of time
Tingaliyo slowly evolved into a
unique artisanal item now known as Tangaliya Shawl. These scarves are a woven
cottage industry product; craftsmen produce their wares at home.
The exclusivity of Babubhai’s work comes from his skilled
weaving technique. The uniqueness of the Tangaliya shawl is in its patterns
woven into the fabric with miniature spherical dots. A tiny piece of yarn is
wrapped around the weft to create a knot the size of the head of a pin. The color
of the yarn needs to contrast the yarn of the fabric. Designs are produced with the systematic
repetition of knots which its makers call ‘danas'.
Based on the basic color of the fabric and the extent of
designs on the surface Tangaliya work is categorized into Ramraj, Charmalia,
Dhunslu and Lobdi. Surprisingly, using a very complicated and skilled
procedure, the craftsmen are employing simple themes like trees, peacocks,
birds and geometrical patterns for decorating their scarves and stoles. Raw materials include wool, cotton and viscose
and silk.
In their article titled Tangalia – The Lesser Known Textile
Craft of Saurashtra Gujarat, Prof.
Vandita Seth and Prof. (Dr.) Anitha Mabel Manohar on fibre2fashion.com credit National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmadabad
and National Institute of Fashion Technology, Gandhinagar for services provided
to Tingaliya handicrafts workers to obtain
Geographical Indication status.
An authoritative history, details about the pit looms on
which the items are produced, artisans’ association involved in it and a map of
the geographical area can be seen in pages 66-72 of Government of India,
Geographical Indications Journal Number 29 published on March 19, 2009.
Tinagalia shawls are something of value. It represents a
cultural heritage and aspirations of a community. But the product sample Rathod
Babubhai Muljibhai had brought to show me was a little thicker and coarse to
the touch, something the western users may not always appreciate. Based on the
needs of the end users, production centers need to modify their processes to
capture export markets. I believe it is easily possible by use of a mixture of
cotton, linen, silk and wool and varying the thickness of the basic fabric.
What do you think?
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