The Haryana shirt, a hand-made shirt

Just because they are classified as “basic” doesn’t mean you have to settle for a shirt that looks like all the others. That’s not my way of doing things anyway! A beautiful shirt is created. That is to say, it takes shape first. With pencil and paper. By a creator. It's important that a piece of clothing is practical, but that only results in basics... really basics!

I first imagined the Haryana shirt after a trip to India. India inspired me: the fabrics that I found, the landscapes that I crossed, the materials that vibrated my senses, the thousands of colors that were imprinted on my retina, the very scents, omnipresent. And as I only live by and for fashion, I walked and drove a lot to find the workshops, weavers, dyers who are the soul of India. I tracked them by pushing open doors, wandering the markets, entering fabric merchants, showing them fabrics, asking them my questions as best I could. And from the fabrics that I brought back, the creative process began. Because creating is not making: it is first of all imagining. Real fashion is only imagination and creation, the rest is commerce.

A hand-woven shirt

I was very happy to find the workshop where the fabric for the Haryana shirt was sourced. This confirmed to me that there are still workshops that weave entirely by hand. And the result is… unique. We say to ourselves that machines necessarily do more precise, more technical work than humans. But what is striking about the weaving of the Haryana shirt fabric are the imperfections. We don't see them, we feel them. In the irregularity of the threads which intersect one perceives as if patterns forged by chance, or by a random movement of the hand, or by a different force applied to the leaf of the loom. It is all the art of the weaver, his personal style, which passes into this fabric. Your shirt will therefore be unique. Unique in its weaving. Unique in the repetition of its pattern. Like the houses that line the hills of Haryana or the rows of tea plants that cover Kerala.

A hand-cut shirt

At the basis of the Haryana shirt there is my shirt model which itself is the result of a long creative process. This process resulted in a cut that approaches a certain perfection (let's not be too pretentious!). It took me, over 1 or 2 years, almost 12 prototypes to perfect this model. From my drawing I made a first pattern. Which I used to cut the first prototype from calico. I adjusted this model on a mannequin without sewing it. 

I made adjustments with pins. And I remade prototypes until I was satisfied. The last one, I sewed with my old Pfaff machine that I have used since I was 10 years old. Over the course of the collections, I corrected the cut. Re-model. Re-modifications. Re-stitching. Finally, I found the model I was looking for. The Haryana Cup is the fruit of all this long and distant work.

A textured shirt

Since the creation of my brand I have always been looking for textures. In every country I've been to. The ones I use are always unique: you will hardly find them elsewhere. 

For this shirt, the horizontal mechanical loom used in the weaving workshop comes from a long tradition that goes back almost 8,000 years. Like that of fabrics in India. Silk, cotton, madras, Indian fabrics, Indian fabrics have been transported to the West by the Silk Road or by boat for centuries. The fabric of our Haryana shirt is made according to these ancient traditions. Exactly the same way. It preserves all the imperfections of the handmade by sowing small random lines on the surface of the fabric which give a touch that is both soft, supple and slightly grainy, which makes it possible to create a unique shirt, very pleasant to wear and to wear. both cool and elegant.

A light shirt

For this summer shirt, I wanted a cut that was neither fitted nor straight but fitted, that is to say elegant, while allowing the bust great mobility. I therefore removed the reinforcement swallows to leave the fabric with all its flexibility. At the same time, I chose a French collar without buttons and flexible. This freedom is accentuated by the presence in the back of two central pleats which maintain a reserve of fabric for movements of a certain magnitude and a slightly longer rear panel, but not too long, to allow it to be worn as desired. .

A responsible shirt

Working with India also allows me to have a more responsible sector. The cotton thread used for this shirt is 100% organic and the workshop I use for its manufacture is located in India, which limits transport, and therefore the carbon footprint. From cotton fields to spinning mills, from spinning mills to weaving workshops, from weaving workshops to garment workshops, from garment workshops to the logistics warehouse, the distances are always quite short. And as a reminder, India, despite many preconceived ideas, is ^167th in terms of its carbon footprint per capita while France, rather well placed for an industrialized country, is ^40th .

How to get the handwoven Haryana summer shirt?

Find this shirt on our E-shop now!

It will be available for 15 days and will be delivered to you at the end of April so that you can enjoy it throughout this summer .