Narsingdi & Tangail
Weavers
Handloom cotton, slub and khadi bases, woven to the width and weight each piece needs.
Indigo, held
by hand.
Shibori, tie-dye and natural-dye textiles for the home and wardrobe, designed in Dhaka and made with artisan communities across Bangladesh.
View the collectionThe house
Every piece begins as plain cotton, folded, stitched or bound by hand, then lowered into a vat of plant dye. The pattern is simply where the cloth was held. No two are ever quite the same, and that is the point.
Collection 01
Four rooms of cloth
The craft
Folded, bound, dipped, opened.
We work with weavers, stitchers and dyers in their own villages and courtyards. Designs are drawn in our studio; the cloth is shaped and dyed by the hands that have known these techniques for generations.
How we makeWhere the thread holds, the cloth remembers.
the draper · Dhaka
For trade
Made to order, for your season.
We design and produce for retailers, concept stores, interiors studios and hospitality. Every style can be developed in your colourway and scale, with samples, costings and compliance documents prepared the way buyers expect.
Trade enquiries
Collection 01 · Made to order
The collection
Bedcovers, table linen, curtains, cushions and wear in 100% cotton, each tied and dyed by hand. Open a piece for its technique, cloth and sizes. Every style is available in your own colourway.
Craft & Philosophy
How a piece is made, and why
Resist dyeing is slow on purpose. The cloth is shaped before it ever meets the dye, and the pattern only appears when the threads are cut.
From brief to bale
Six stages, most of them by hand
Design & fold plan
Pattern, scale and colour are drawn in the studio, then translated into a fold or stitch map for the makers.
Base cloth
Cotton is woven and scoured to remove starch, so the dye takes evenly.
Bind, stitch, clamp
Thread, wooden blocks or poles hold parts of the cloth away from the dye.
The vat
Indigo builds dip by dip, turning green to blue in the air. Other colours go into mordant baths.
Open & wash
Bindings are cut, the pattern revealed, and the cloth rinsed and dried in the sun.
Finish & inspect
Cut, sewn, measured to spec, tested for wash and rub fastness, then packed.
Techniques
The language of resist
Itajime
板締め · fold & clampCloth folded into a stack and clamped between shaped blocks. Gives our pinwheels, stars, grids and triangles (sankaku).
Hira-nui
平縫い · running-stitch resistA line of running stitch drawn tight before dyeing. Used for outlines, fern borders and fine rings.
Ori-nui
折り縫い · fold & stitchCloth folded and stitched along the fold, which dyes into leaf and petal shapes with a sharp edge.
Mokume
杢目 · wood grainRows of parallel stitching gathered tight, leaving soft, rippling lines like the grain of timber.
Kumo
蜘蛛 · spider webPoints of cloth pleated and bound in tight bands, opening into radiating circles like a web or sand dollar.
Kanoko
鹿の子 · fawn spotsSmall pinches of cloth tied with thread to leave dots and rings. The Japanese cousin of our own bandhan tie.
Arashi
嵐 · stormCloth wrapped diagonally around a pole and compressed, giving rain-like slanting lines.
Suji
筋 · lineCloth pleated lengthwise and bound at intervals, for broken stripes with an irregular rhythm.
Kantha
কাঁথা · Bengali running stitchBengal's own quilting stitch, layered over dyed cloth for quilts, throws and patchwork.
The dye library
Colour from plants, bark and iron
Five raw materials, sourced in Bangladesh and India, give our whole palette. Overdyeing one on another adds three more.
Indigo
Indigofera tinctoria · leafFermented in the vat and built up dip by dip, from pale sky to near-black navy.
Cutch
Acacia catechu · heartwood extractKnown locally as khoyer. Gives warm browns from cocoa to deep bark.
Madder
Rubia cordifolia · rootManjistha root. Rust, brick and soft terracotta reds.
Myrobalan
Terminalia chebula · fruitHaritaki. A golden yellow, and the tannin base that helps other colours hold.
Pomegranate
Punica granatum · rindDried rind gives khaki and mustard tones, and olive over indigo.
Overdyed shades
OlivePomegranate over light indigo
LeafIndigo over myrobalan
Iron greyMyrobalan with an iron mordant
Philosophy
What is held back makes the pattern.
I
Imperfect, on purpose
No two tied pieces are identical. We design for that variation and tell buyers how much to expect, so the maker's hand reads as character.
II
Fair before the first fold
Piece rates are agreed with each group at sampling and paid on delivery to the studio, never held until a buyer pays us.
III
Heritage, designed forward
Shibori from Japan, bandhan and kantha from Bengal. We honour where each technique comes from and design it for how people live now.
Studio
A design studio,
a network of hands
Our story
From a fashion studio in Dhaka to homes around the world.
the draper was founded by a designer trained in fashion, who began tying and dyeing cloth in small batches and found that people wanted to live with it. The first pieces sold online and through Jatra, the Dhaka store known for championing Bangladeshi craft.
Those early customers taught us what makes a piece worth keeping: honest cloth, colour that ages well, and a pattern with a person behind it. As the work grew, so did the circle of artisans we work with.
Today we bring that same cloth to retailers, concept stores and interiors studios abroad, so that Bangladeshi hand-craft can reach a wider shelf with its story intact.
Our artisans
The work travels to the village
We produce through small, mostly women-led groups working from home or a shared courtyard. Each group owns one stage of the cloth, and orders are planned around their calendar, including harvest and monsoon.
Jamalpur & Jessore
Stitchers
Nui running stitch pulled tight before dyeing, and kantha quilting for throws and baby quilts.
Dhaka studio
Folders & binders
Itajime clamping, arashi wrapping and kumo binding, each from a fold plan drawn in our studio.
Savar dye yard
Dyers
Fermented indigo vats and mordant baths, with every recipe logged by lot for repeatable colour.
Trade enquiries
Work with us
We sell to the trade only. Tell us about your store and season, and we will reply within two working days with our line sheet, costings and sample options.
- We make
- Bed, table and cushion textiles, kimonos and shirts
- Development
- Your colourway, scale, sizes and labels
- Quantities
- Boutique runs through to retail programmes
- Sampling
- Typically three to four weeks
- Production
- Typically eight to twelve weeks
- Shipping
- FOB Chattogram or Dhaka, or CIF
