Impression

Block printing begins not with ink, but with wood. A craftsman in Rajasthan, working in a tradition that precedes industrialisation by centuries, carves a motif into a block of teak or sheesham, cutting away everything that is not the pattern. What remains is the design in relief: raised, precise, ready to carry colour.

Mora works within the Bagru tradition, centred in the village of Bagru near Jaipur, a practice inseparable from its landscape. Bagru printing is a resist process: fabric is first treated with a mud-and-wheat-paste resist before the block is applied, then immersed in a natural dye bath. The resist shields what it covers; the dye claims everything else. What emerges from the wash is a print that could not have been computed or predicted in full. Each impression carries the weight of the block, the give of the cloth, the temperature of the day. Two prints from the same block are never exactly the same.

For our SS26 collection, In Blue, At Ease, this process was the foundation. Every piece carries the evidence of its making: a slight irregularity at the edge of a motif, a deepening of colour where the block pressed twice. We do not correct these. They are not flaws. They are the record of a hand that moved through cloth with care.

Bagru printing is recognised under India's Geographical Indication system: a tradition with a specific place, a specific people, and a specific way of knowing.