The celebrations for the sixth National Handloom Day have gone digital this year with the Ministry of Textiles and Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI). A week-long campaign is going to be launched to highlight and support the work of weavers, ‘the quiet warriors’. They are one who have suffered the most with the fashion industry taking a hit due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The virtual campaign was launched on National Handloom Day (August 7) on social media with an announcement by the Ministry of Textiles. Textiles Minister Smriti Irani tweeted on Friday morning that India has a rich and diverse handloom and we need to acknowledge the contribution of weavers in conserving our heritage. In this campaign #Vocal4handmade and “Bring home handmade” were promoted to celebrate our handloom legacy and support the clarion call of ‘Aatma Nirbhar Bharat’.”
On this day Government launched portal “My handloom” where a single portal can notify various textile affairs to weavers, textile co-operative societies, other textile related organisations etc to instil pride in the weaving community.
Sunil Sethi, Chairman, FDCI, says, “Our designers have been coming up with ideas on how to support and work in collaboration with more weavers. Before being a part of this campaign to promote #Vocal4Handmade, we came up with ‘Celebrate the Maker’, a social media campaign to keep the conversation and discussions active around the most important asset that we have to preserve and have to work to promote – handloom and weavers. We will continue our efforts in this direction and in the proposed fashion week in the future, we plan to have a handloom show, something which has been part of our fashion weeks even in the past.”
Sethi also shares that to support the weavers, FDCI is also opening the third tranche of COVID-19 Support Fund (CSF) to provide financial assistance to the weavers by buying unsold stocks from them. The weavers will be identified by the DC Handlooms, under the Ministry of Textiles. “The first tranche of CSF was for our designers, second was for designers who are not with FDCI and the third will be dedicated to weavers,” he says.
The Government is providing online marketing opportunities to weavers and handloom producers in the face of the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, and inability to hold conventional marketing events such as exhibitions, melas, etc. The Handloom Export Promotion Council is organizing a virtual fair. The fair will connect more than 150 participants from different regions of the country showcasing their products with unique designs and skills. The Indian Textile Sourcing Fair will be open on 7, 10 and 11 August. Exquisite Patolas, Paithanis, Ikats, Kandangis, Maheshwaris, Venkatagiris and numerous other GI tagged products will be on display for the International buying community to source their products directly from the masters themselves.
