Southloom Handmade and Organics, based out of Trivandrum, Kerala's capital city, is part of a tradition that dates back to more than one thousand years. Southloom’s Handloom products from Kerala are part of a handloom culture, that even the Europeans and Arabs once came to the coastal state searching for.
Each of our handloom products are the result of the craftsmanship of a master weaver from, Kerala. Southloom's handmade, hand woven golden-bordered and coloured clothing has been crafted with utmost care and devotion that is unmatched. It takes days or even months to create handloom clothing with perfection and detail that no machines can recreate.
Southloom is a wholehearted pledge from the latest generation of this handloom cult, to revive a vibrant Malayali tradition, that has felt the wrath of technology and is on the verge of extinction. But despite this, several families across the state embraced and strived to keep alive for centuries, as weavers and consumers.
Southloom's vision is to give this unique product a new life by creating Kerala Handloom clothing under a brand, through our own network of exclusive weavers who can create the finest quality clothing this tradition has to offer.
There are thousands of families across Kerala whose lives are dependent on income they earth through handloom weaving. They work and toil hard to create the traditional clothing that we cherish. But often they are not remunerated as they should be, and are exploited in a sense. They do not fully understand the worth of the products that they make. Southloom aspires to work with these weavers and give them their fair share of earnings.
By buying from Southloom you are not only contributing to the livelihood and empowerment of hundreds of handloom weavers across Kerala, but also saving a culture that we have alienated ourselves from.
Don’t just Buy Handloom, Buy Southloom!
Above is one of Southloom’s weavers from Balaramapuram village, spinning the washed and beaten cotton thread on a spindle which he will later dry and season with rice starch. Then the seasoned thread is loaded on to a roller thread by thread on a roller, which is loaded on to the Handloom Weaving Machine (called തറി / Thari in Malayalam)
Every design on a Southloom Handloom Saree is woven into it by hand. It takes days and even months to create a single Handloom saree, but it is bound to last a lifetime.
The mesh like apparatus called Ach / അച്ച് is used to seperate the threads before they are loaded on to a loom.
Handloom Weaving is a source of livelihood and empowerment for thousands of women across the villages of Kerala. Southloom aspires to work with these gifted weavers to offer their creations to our customers and at the same time bettering their lives.