Mafatlal Denim Ltd.

Out on Vejalpore Road, we spend our days surrounded by rolls of blue fabric. This is where Mafatlal Denim is based. It’s a large facility because making denim takes a lot of room. You have the spinning, the dyeing, and the weaving all happening under one roof. The smell of indigo is something you never really lose once you work here. It gets on your hands and stays there for days. We’ve been operating in this spot for a while now. The road outside has changed over the years, getting busier with every passing season. Inside the gates, though, it’s all about the rhythm of the looms. It is a loud place, and you have to raise your voice to be heard, but there is a certain order to the chaos. We watch the threads become cloth inch by inch. Not every batch comes out perfect on the first try, so we have to keep a close eye on the vats. The workers here come from the surrounding villages mostly. Some of them have fathers who worked in textiles too. We don't spend much time on fancy presentations. Most of our day is spent checking the weight of the fabric or seeing how the wash looks. It is honest work. We make the material that ends up as someone's favorite pair of jeans, and that's enough for us. It’s a long process from cotton to fabric, but we know every step of it.