The Chennai Sequins

We spend most of our time here at No. 4 Thiru V Ka Nagar First Street in Tirupur. It’s a busy part of town and the noise from the street is always coming through the windows. Inside, it’s mostly the sound of the machines clicking away. We do a lot of work with sequins and decorative bits for clothes. There’s usually thread and small shiny pieces all over the floor by noon, which we have to sweep up before we go home. It’s not a fancy place, just a workspace where we get things done. Sometimes the heat in Tirupur gets to be a bit much, especially in the afternoons when the sun hits the front of the building. We have a small tea break around four o’clock, and that’s usually when we talk about what needs to be finished by the end of the week. Most of us have been working in this area for a long time, so we know the neighbors and the other shops around College Road pretty well. If you walk down the street, you’ll see plenty of other places doing similar things, but we just stay focused on our own tables. We don’t really have a big showroom or anything like that. It’s just us, the machines, and the fabric. It gets pretty crowded when a big order comes in, but we manage to find space for everything. That’s just how it goes here for us.