Starter Kit. Idea 65 of 500. Cluster 3
Handloom sarongs and shirts in the heritage colours of each district
The mechanism, from the book
The Zermatt water bottle. Sigiriya has not got a stone with its own name on it.
The first step
Choose one district, work out its heritage colours with a weaver, and have five sarongs and five shirts woven. Photograph them in that district's own setting and offer them to a hotel shop there and a Sri Lankan shop abroad. Sales at the asking price, and requests for other districts' colours, are the proof.
- Who pays first
- Visitors and Sri Lankan buyers abroad who want clothing tied to a place, and hotel shops that want local stock with a story.
- What leaves today
- Handloom earns little when sold as plain cloth; district colours give it an identity and a price to match.
Ask first
- National Crafts Council. Ask which handloom weavers they work with and whether they take bulk orders.
- Department of Cultural Affairs. Ask whether districts have traditional colours or patterns on record.
Check before you spend
That the district colours you use are genuinely traditional, that weavers are paid fairly, and that sizes and fabric suit buyers abroad.
Find out these three numbers
- What will a visitor pay for a handloom shirt?
- How many shirts can one weaving group make in a month?
- Which shops in each district would stock them?
A comparison from the book
Zermatt. Chapter Five
"here will carry the name of here."
Each district's colour says where the cloth was made, which is the book's idea of a brand.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.