A Fabric Library That Tells the Truth

Most people buy a garment without knowing what it is made of. Not the fibre name — that is usually on a label somewhere — but the things that actually determine whether they will still be wearing it in five years: how it creases, whether it pills, what sunlight does to it, how it behaves after a monsoon in a Mumbai wardrobe.

So the fabric library lists those, including the unflattering ones. Silk organza is stated as creasing badly and needing to be stored rolled. Velvet is stated as marking permanently if it is crushed under weight. Mulmul is stated as thinning noticeably after about thirty washes, which is a feature if you like a soft cotton and a defect if you expected it to stay crisp.

We were advised, more than once, that publishing this would cost us sales. It has had the opposite effect, and the reason is not that customers admire candour in the abstract. It is that a customer who knows organza creases and buys it anyway does not return it when it creases. Nearly all of our returns used to be surprise, not dissatisfaction.

The library is open to anyone, whether or not they buy from us, and several tailoring houses in Mumbai now use it as a reference. That was not the plan, but it is a better outcome than the plan.