Daydress began with a single dress; A perfectly simple, soft cotton shirt dress.
I was travelling with work in India, being happily overwhelmed by the sights, sounds and colours of Jaipur’s old city. My head was turned by the piles-upon-piles of brightly coloured block printed cottons for sale, so I picked a pretty one, took it to a tailor and asked him to make me a perfect shirt dress, with pockets, a tidy little Nehru collar and buttons all the way down the front, and that was the first Daydress. Now we have many more styles, all created using our own original Daydress block prints.
I had always loved block-print and began developing my own print patterns for dresses in 2017. I was working full-time at House & Garden magazine and Daydress was a side project, which stealthily became more demanding, so in Summer 2021 I began full-time Daydress.
I spend many happy hours designing the Daydress block-prints. They are what make us unique and for me, designing pattern is totally addictive! You can view some of our designs in the ‘Textile Library’ here. Although our main focus is dresses, the many other applications for our prints are irresistible, so we are happy to be launching tableware and more home accessories in 2024.
What makes Daydress different?
The way we make our dresses is very simple. First of all they’re all produced in India, all the materials come from India and they are hand block printed and stitched by two small workshops within a few miles of each other in Jaipur. So local is very important to us. All our dyes are azo-free and our handwoven cotton is hand spun and organic. Our machine cotton is not organic. There are very few places which can prove without a shadow of a doubt that their cotton is. Sadly corruption is rife, as are false certifications so we try to balance the handloom, which we know come from small cotton growers, with the machine cotton.
We only make a very small quantity of each dress, usually between 30 and 60 units. In this way, we try not to create excess fabric. Any fabric we do have leftover we make into smaller items to sell around Christmas time. Our makers here in Jaipur are small family run businesses. The block printers are a father and his sons. They have 6 printing tables and print almost exclusively for us. We love creating work that supports this art form which is happening less and less in India these days. Our tailoring unit is again very small.
Our head-tailor has been with Daydress since the beginning and trains anyone new in the way of our dresses, which are quite particular! (We are very fussy about pattern matching and placement). I live in India 6-months of the year and spend lots of time with our team when I’m here so can personally verify that it’s a lovely environment!
All produced in one city
Every one of our hand-block printed garments is produced from scratch in Jaipur. Apart from the cotton base cloth, which is woven in south India, the fabric is dyed, block printed, cut, stitched, finished and shipped from our small workshop in Jaipur.
Small Batch
Small-scale production is very important to us. Keeping our quantities small means more exclusivity for you, very little waste and the ability to support independent craftspeople. It also gives us full control over the quality of each finished piece.
Supporting independant makers
Independence is highly important to Daydress. Both our own, and that of the craftspeople we work with. To be able to support and promote skills and in doing so hope to make them appealing and viable for the next generation to learn and practice.
Original Design
All our block-print patterns are designed in the Daydress Studio. While antique textiles provide us with endless inspiration, it is very important to us that we do not use pre-existing block-print designs, this is how we stay unique!
Details
Please turn our garments inside-out and you will see how beautifully finished they are. Seams are French, embroidery is produced by hand, buttons are sewn on by hand.
Transparent production
Our block-carvers and block printers are totally independent, so whatever they bill us for, goes only to them. We have no middle men. I use the same small production unit that I discovered in 2017 on my exploratory sabbatical to Jaipur.
