Prerona Das Roy is revisiting the roots of handloom industry by her clothing brand “Label Prerona”

Prerona Das Roy

Extensive modernization and integration of automation drive skilled artisans out of business. The weaving industry is the most relevant example of a gregarious shift from hand weaving to machine weaving, spinning, and dying to meet ever-growing demands. But between meeting production demand and automation, the nuanced art of hand-weaving is lost in the crowd. Most of us don't even know the difference between a machine-woven fabric and a hand-woven one. Label Prerona is an attempt by the enigmatic 22-year-old Prerona Das Roy to resuscitate the handloom industry and bring back the spotlight to the dexterous hand weaving artisans forced out of work.

Prerona Das Roy was always fascinated with clothing and art and loved the fabrics and clothing owned by her mother in her teenage days. Her love for the muslin fabric, hand-woven cotton, etc., hasn't subsided, but when she realized that the hand-woven products were slowly vanishing from the clothing markets, she was aghast with the abrupt change. Prerona Das Roy understood the cultural heritage and intrinsic value of hand-crafted items and clothing from a very young age. She rebuilt the eagerness for quality handloom products by creating a brand that deals with the production and distribution of hand-woven fabrics and other unique items,

The idea for Label Prerona emanated from her parents, who were working for the Artisans of Bengal program. Its goal is to find and reemploy the handloom operators and spinners adept in weaving "mulmul" or muslin fabric with a thread count even finer than what the machines are capable of now. Muslin is a delicate fabric that cannot be created with machine looms and is a craft unique to the weaver families of Bengal. Apart from weaving and spinning, Label Prerona also focuses on natural dying methods that generate little to no effluents, which is a persistent problem with the synthetic dying process.

Speaking about Label Prerona, Prerona Das Roy says, " Label Prerona isn't crated to garner profits and supply inferior quality machine-woven fabrics that cause a lot of pollution in the process. It's time to think wisely about the repercussions of synthetic dying and weaving and return to ancient and reliable weaving solutions. The fine art of weaving will become extinct if we continue to keep ignoring the local artisans, who laid the groundwork for such compelling and intricate weaving practices."