In a bid to showcase in the national and international markets, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to introduce new designs to infuse contemporary and trendy models in the State’s handloom varieties.

New design for traditional textile products includes sarees, bedspreads, ‘jamakkalams’, and home furnishings.

A senior official from the state textile department said, in order to meet the objective of bringing innovation in production and design for producing marketable products, the department has entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) at Chennai and Bengaluru to develop 400 new designs.

“Through NIFT, 100 new designs would be developed for silk sarees, 100 for cotton and kora sarees”, he said adding “similarly, 40 new designs each for bedspreads and bedsheets, about 20 new designs for 'jamakkalams’.”

Pointing out that in addition, about 100 new designs will also be developed exclusively for home furnishings, the official said “the new initiative will create ample opportunities for the weavers in the rural areas next only to Agriculture”.

He said further, apart from the training from NIFT, strategic design intervention training has also been imparted to 44 master designers from Weavers Co-operative Societies, Co-optex, and block-level clusters through the officials of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad here recently.

“The training was given on creating a diversified range of designs and colour combinations so as to add elegance to the cotton and silk varieties produced by the handloom weavers in the State,” he said adding each participant was assigned to develop at least ten new ones so that they could develop a minimum 440 new designs.

Stating that the average annual production of various handloom products through handloom weavers is around Rs 500 crore, the official said that the creation of new designs will increase the production by more than Rs 700 crore.

“All the new designs will be approved by the panel in the textile department”, he said adding “The designs will also get the copyright”.

According to the official, soon after “LOOM WORLD” came into existence to strengthen the marketing of handloom products in the State by establishing a few showrooms in Chennai, Erode, and Coimbatore. “The new designs will be included in the “LOOM WORLD,” he added.