A day seeing all the steps in creating our Hemprus and spending time with everyone involved

Delhi traffic is like nothing I’ve experienced before. As a UK comparable it’s like trying to get on the Waterloo and City line at 7.45am on a Tuesday morning in 35 degree heat. It’s every man or woman for themselves. The rules are don’t worry about anyone behind you and use your horn to tell the person in front you’re there. Lane markings were a nice afterthought by the roads department, but the concept is yet to catch.

There are 34 million people in Delhi and I’m fairly sure we’re all going to the same place. We swerve into the path of the Tuktuk behind us to give the cow in the outside lane a wide berth. You don’t honk those.

I’m in Delhi to visit my manufacturing partners who make our Hempru’s, our recently launched Nehru gilet made from a heavier Babble signature hemp.

After 6 months of conversing via WhatsApp and FaceTime, our first run of Hemprus were a big hit and having committed to the relationship with a much larger run I wanted to see the process and meet everyone involved.

There’s the fabric mill where the main hemp fabric of the Hempru is woven from yarn. Having mastered debits and credits, I’m now learning my warps from my weaves.

There’s the printing unit where our hemp tencel blend lining has the drawings of hemp history printed on. Fabric is fed into giant printers where it whizzes back and forth with the history of hemp drawings laid on before it’s then hoisted high into the air to be fed through a steamer (exaggerates the colours) and then dried.  Washing and drying to finish.

Finally we have the stitching unit where a crack squad of six artisans work together in three different stages to construct the final product from constituent parts of fabric, lining, buttons and labels.

I had the privilege of meeting Paankumari, Sawasrati, Satpal, Rajkumar, Rajkumar (again) and Manoj. One is the ‘cutter’ (cut one at a time due to the weight of the fabric by shearing scissors), three operate sewing machines with extraordinary precision and speed, with two ‘finishing’ or cutting loose threads / quality control etc.

I’m deeply grateful for their hard work, craftsmanship, and dedication that goes into every cut, stitch and detail in bringing Babble & Hemp to life through beautiful garments many of us have enjoyed wearing.

Whilst my inability to speak Hindi did prevent any long dialogue between us, I was over the moon to spend the afternoon with them learning their trade (and how detailed they have to be), assisting in a tiny way to creating some Hempru’s for the current production run, and thanking them for their diligent work.

On the other hand they were grateful for having clothes to make for employment. There are a huge number of factories and orders can be few and far between especially if a tariff war starts. I want to grow this business to keep all of us busy, most of all them.

There are some videos on our Instagram account which I have also put on YouTube here.

We have Hemprus available in three colours; Mathura Blue, Karakoram Cream and Chola Moss.