Art of dyeing: To tie and dye, that is the question
Most of Lower Dir’s artisans have left profession as customer base shrinks.
Most of Lower Dir’s artisans have left the profession as customer base shrinks and their colourful tricks on fabric can no longer pay the bills. DESIGN: MUNIRA ABBAS
PESHAWAR:
Naik Aziz came and settled in Chakdara Bazaar in the mid 70s and rented a shop in the bustling market to woo women with his sharp dyeing skills.
The bazaar, in the main town of Lower Dir, is very different today from the one where Aziz used to sell more than just newly-coloured, neatly folded squares of fabric; he sold the idea of transformation – a promise which new clothes bring.
Those were the days, recalls the master dyer with a smile. He was young, enthusiastic and enjoyed the colourful profession and the handful of money in his pocket by nightfall.
Dipping a neat white piece of linen fabric into a pot of boiling water hissing with steam and stirring it with a stick, Aziz says he used to see an average of 80 customers at his shop everyday till the late 1990s.
Aziz shares Chakdara was a commercial hub and he would earn Rs2,000 on a daily basis but now he feels lucky when he goes home with Rs300. He is unsure if his work has become outdated or people have become too fashionable, ponders Aziz. He thinks it mainly has to do with the availability of cheap imported cloths in the market.
Chiffon, crinkle and cotton shawls are very common now and come in rich colours, laments Aziz, as a result people hardly get their cloths dyed now.
Pointing at the ground outside his now empty shop, Aziz says there used to be long queues of customers waiting for their turn at the dye stand but that scene is now a part of history.
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble
“For the last three months I have been working as a daily wager with other labourers in the market, loading and unloading vehicles as I have six mouths to feed at home,” says the former artisan.
The first blow to hit Aziz’s profession was the rise in militancy and the resultant curfews. The next blow? The three-piece suits and ready-made shawls which flooded the market.
Aziz is not the only shopkeeper in the market who laments the dismal state of business and looks back fondly on the ‘golden age’.
Saifur Rahman, a shawl dyer in the same area, says he now brings home less than Rs500 a day. He says in the good old days he would be dyeing 30 to 50 shawls daily but now he might be lucky to do five.
More than anything, Rahman blames the rising prices of dyes, chemicals, salts, soda, naphthalene and other ingredients used in the process, as well as the increase in gas and electricity rates.
“Business goes down every day,” complains Rahman. He says he learnt the craft in Abbottabad and Karachi for over two years before becoming a professional – an investment which now gets him less than a thousand a day.
Most shawl dyers have left their jobs in Chakdara, Ouch, Talash, Timergara and Khalas.
Suffering from fashion
Kabul Jana, a resident of Talash, loves getting her clothes coloured but said the profession is dying because it is hard to press and iron the dyed cloth. “After all, chiffon went out of style in 2000.”
Hajra agrees that changing fashions and imported suits have forced people to ditch the traditional ways of designing and making clothes. “Rather than going through the tedium of getting cloth dyed, people have gotten used to the ease of buying ready-made items from the market,” says Hajra.
Aziz, who spends half his day reminiscing, says back when business was booming he would dye fabric in a whole range of colours but his favourite was indigo. “Ripe and beautiful, it goes with any colour.”
Initially, his customers were not used to the peacock blues and vermilions, but “I stained their white cloth with colours of my choice which they later loved. So in a way I was a trend-setter”.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 5th, 2014.
Naik Aziz came and settled in Chakdara Bazaar in the mid 70s and rented a shop in the bustling market to woo women with his sharp dyeing skills.
The bazaar, in the main town of Lower Dir, is very different today from the one where Aziz used to sell more than just newly-coloured, neatly folded squares of fabric; he sold the idea of transformation – a promise which new clothes bring.
Those were the days, recalls the master dyer with a smile. He was young, enthusiastic and enjoyed the colourful profession and the handful of money in his pocket by nightfall.
Dipping a neat white piece of linen fabric into a pot of boiling water hissing with steam and stirring it with a stick, Aziz says he used to see an average of 80 customers at his shop everyday till the late 1990s.
Aziz shares Chakdara was a commercial hub and he would earn Rs2,000 on a daily basis but now he feels lucky when he goes home with Rs300. He is unsure if his work has become outdated or people have become too fashionable, ponders Aziz. He thinks it mainly has to do with the availability of cheap imported cloths in the market.
Chiffon, crinkle and cotton shawls are very common now and come in rich colours, laments Aziz, as a result people hardly get their cloths dyed now.
Pointing at the ground outside his now empty shop, Aziz says there used to be long queues of customers waiting for their turn at the dye stand but that scene is now a part of history.
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble
“For the last three months I have been working as a daily wager with other labourers in the market, loading and unloading vehicles as I have six mouths to feed at home,” says the former artisan.
The first blow to hit Aziz’s profession was the rise in militancy and the resultant curfews. The next blow? The three-piece suits and ready-made shawls which flooded the market.
Aziz is not the only shopkeeper in the market who laments the dismal state of business and looks back fondly on the ‘golden age’.
Saifur Rahman, a shawl dyer in the same area, says he now brings home less than Rs500 a day. He says in the good old days he would be dyeing 30 to 50 shawls daily but now he might be lucky to do five.
More than anything, Rahman blames the rising prices of dyes, chemicals, salts, soda, naphthalene and other ingredients used in the process, as well as the increase in gas and electricity rates.
“Business goes down every day,” complains Rahman. He says he learnt the craft in Abbottabad and Karachi for over two years before becoming a professional – an investment which now gets him less than a thousand a day.
Most shawl dyers have left their jobs in Chakdara, Ouch, Talash, Timergara and Khalas.
Suffering from fashion
Kabul Jana, a resident of Talash, loves getting her clothes coloured but said the profession is dying because it is hard to press and iron the dyed cloth. “After all, chiffon went out of style in 2000.”
Hajra agrees that changing fashions and imported suits have forced people to ditch the traditional ways of designing and making clothes. “Rather than going through the tedium of getting cloth dyed, people have gotten used to the ease of buying ready-made items from the market,” says Hajra.
Aziz, who spends half his day reminiscing, says back when business was booming he would dye fabric in a whole range of colours but his favourite was indigo. “Ripe and beautiful, it goes with any colour.”
Initially, his customers were not used to the peacock blues and vermilions, but “I stained their white cloth with colours of my choice which they later loved. So in a way I was a trend-setter”.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 5th, 2014.