A loose and oversized dress made from beautiful hand tied bandhani fabric from Gujarat, India. This fabric is a cotton woven in a broken twill, it has a beautiful drape and is died in a dark indigo-blue with the spots in a soft white. The cut is loose and comfortable with a drop shoulder, and the neck has been cut wide but not too deep. There are no pockets due to the weight of the fabric, sorry about that but will only add pockets when the garment can carry them well. Because of the drop shoulder the side hem drops longer and falls beautifully.

Bandhani tie dye originated in India and is believed to have followed the trade routes to Japan where it developed as kōkechi style shibori. Many current Japanese fashion designers use Indian artisans today to produce their shibori designs. The bandhani fabric lengths are made by folding the fabric into layers and then the tying starts using either a fingernail or a spiked ring to raise the fabric and tie it. It is then dyed and once dry the fabric bundle is stretched to make the bound section pop open. The textile nerd in me loves doing this! The tying causes texture but this will generally/eventually disperse with washing. Our fabric has a lovely irregularity to the spots and because the fabric is layered for tying the spots change across the length.

We have machine washed the dress in cold water and the texture is lovely. We suggest popping it into a garment bag for washing as the 5 metres of fabric may get tangled in the washing machine. Shake out and pop on a hanger to dry, don’t waste time ironing.

Measurements: approximate

Shoulder at the neck point to bust seam 28cm

Bust 180cm

Length from neck point to hem 112cm

CB to sleeve cuff 80cm

CB to sleeve head 50cm

Sleeve length 30cm

Cuff 34cm

Upper sleeve 42cm

Hem approx 500cm