Make what the mills do not
In the late 1800s cheap British mill cloth was pushing Indian weavers out of saree and dhoti weaving. In Bhavani, weavers of the Jangamar community answered with a different product: the jamakkalam, a thick carpet of coloured coarse cotton. It sold, and other weavers switched to it too.
Woven from a pit
A jamakkalam is woven on a wooden pit loom. The weaver sits in a pit in the ground, level with the cloth, works two pedals with the feet and throws the shuttle by hand. It is slow, and that is the point: no mill makes it the same way.
A buyer from Sweden
In 1993 IKEA began buying jamakkalams from Bhavani for its stores. Today they go to Sweden, Germany, Italy, the UK, the US and Singapore, and in India through Co-optex. In 2005-06 Bhavani jamakkalam became a GI. About 1,500 people weave them, two in three of them women.
The pressure has not gone away: since the 2000s power-loom carpets from Solapur and cheap imports have taken share, and the state supports the hand weavers with subsidies and rules that reserve the product for handlooms.
Slow is the point: no mill makes it the same way.
Points for a finance reader
- When a big rival comes, move sideways. Bhavani did not fight the mills on sarees. It made a product the mills did not.
- One big buyer opens the world. An IKEA order brought standards, volume and new markets.
- Know what makes you hard to copy. The pit loom is slow, and it is also the reason for the GI and the premium.