Sarees that aren’t just made exclusively for you, but also by you
With RmKV, you can now customize your sarees right down to the last detail.
Remember that old saree of mom’s that you wish was as good as new? Or that saree you’ve always wanted to create from scratch, but have now tucked away in that corner of your mind called ‘someday’?
At RmKV, we’ve learned that a woman’s taste in sarees is as unique as she is. So, that got us thinking – could we do more than bring the creations of our designers and weavers to you? Could we instead help you craft your own saree? The answer will have you eagerly filing through the ‘someday’ corner of your mind.
When a saree becomes a story ?
A saree is perhaps the most personalized garment one can wear. The blouse is stitched to fit just so, and the saree is draped to complement our shape. Designing your own saree, then, seems like a natural extension of wearing one.
Vasanthi Gomathinayagam, for example, wanted her wedding saree to reflect her journey to the mandapam. She reached out to us a few months before her wedding, asking if we could create a bridal saree that captured the milestones and memories of her relationship, which all occurred in Washington DC.
Vasanthi Gomathinayagam in her customized Kanchipuram silk saree on her wedding day.
The Lincoln Memorial was where the proposal took place, and Vasanthi chose the monument as the main motif of the saree. Over several calls, Vasanthi shared her ideas with our design team, who worked on sketches and renders to translate her vision into a weave. Once the design was finalized, our master weavers began telling the story of the courtship in the language of warp and weft. The Lincoln Memorial was woven into the pallu in stunning detail; the cherry blossoms that bloom around the Memorial in spring were recreated on the body, interspersed with honeycomb patterns. On the border, the Washington Monument stands tall beside the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol Building. Every detail is reflective of a cherished memory, and by custom-creating her wedding saree, Vasanthi made the garment truly her own. Here’s how she described the experience:
Sarees that revive old memories and create new ones :
Over the years, we’ve customized sarees for diverse occasions and reasons. Customers have brought us their decades-old heirloom sarees, carefully unwrapped from muslin covers, asking that they be recreated for the next generation to enjoy. For special anniversaries, we’ve recreated wedding photographs in perfect detail on pallus. Our 50,000-colour saree can be personalized to reflect every tint and tone of your favorite color. Any of our sarees can be woven to your specifications, with their colors, motifs, and textures all of your choosing.
The customization process can take between 45-60 working days, depending on the complexity of the design you have in mind. Here’s how the process unfolds:
1. Email us at customercare@rmkv.com with ‘Saree customization’ in the subject line.
2. Our team will get in touch with you to set up a meeting with our designers. Once you’ve shared your ideas, we’ll get to work!
3. Our designers will create and share a digital layout (called a line sketch) of the saree with you. This layout will be fine-tuned based on your input. Here’s a sample of the layout created for Vasanthi’s ‘Lincoln Memorial’ bridal saree.
Ideation Sketch Of The Saree
4. Once you’ve approved the saree layout, our team will convert it into pixels, as shown in the image below. These pixels will be rendered into jacquard cards and passed on to our master weavers.
Pixel Conversion of Digital Sketch
5. Before we dye the warp and weft yarns, we’ll share color samples with you for approval. Depending on the intricacies of the design, we could also share a small weaving sample.
6. The weaving process gets underway; each weave is meticulously created on the loom by a skilled craftsman, as this video shows.
RmKV’s Craftsman Weaving Pallu Portion of The Saree
7. In a few short weeks, your handwoven, custom-designed saree will be delivered to your doorstep!
In the era of fast fashion, when mass-manufactured clothes in standardized sizes are the norm, what could be more meaningful or authentic than a garment that is an expression of your experiences? Each customized saree that we co-create is a journey that brings together weaver and wearer and is unique in its own way. Because, the women we make them for are, too.
For more details about saree customization, please write to us at customercare@rmkv.com
