Folio № 02 · Final Major Project · Ongoing 2026

Jamdani, re-threaded — a cultural narrative in cloth

Rownok Jahan Tithi · Leicester

02 — Final Major Project · In progress

Jamdani,
re-threaded.

Ongoing · research · toile · development

Chapter I

Concept — Jamdani, the hand, the inheritance.

Where the project begins: a swatch wall, the makers, the muses — laid out as a single field, in conversation with one another.

Plates II–IIIresearch collage
moodboard

Research collage — jamdani swatches, hand-painted florals, weaver at frame — Jamdani grounds — maroon, teal and violet — laid alongside hand-painted floral studies and the weaver at her frame. The whole field of reference, on one page.II

Muse moodboard — reference garments and design ideation — Reference figures and a painted toile on the stand — the silhouette I'm chasing, drawn from designers I admire and from the cloth itself.III

The hand that weaves is the story. The print on top is just how I try to carry it further.

— Designer's note · studio, Leicester · 2026

Chapter II

Line-up — four looks, drawn into being.

Marker and pastel illustrations — the collection on the page before it is on the body.

Plate IVillustration
four looks

Four illustrated looks — gown, dress, sheath, dress in motion — Four looks drawn end to end — long gown, layered dress, tasselled sheath, motion-piece. The vocabulary of the collection in one frame.IV

III

Chapter III

Development — paint, tassel, toile.

From flat study to fabric. Painted florals translated through pastel, into tassel clusters, onto the stand.

Plates V–IX5 spreads
paint · tassel
toile · ruffle

Oil-pastel flower studies surrounding a draped toile — Oil-pastel flower studies in cobalt, ochre and orange — the print family that the cloth and the tassel will both echo.V

Motif painting, tassel skein, bodice cluster, artisan with thread — Single motif beside its tassel translation — printed strips dyed, fringed, and clustered into the bodice form. The hand that spins, photographed alongside.VI

Tasselled bodice with ruffle skirt, pastel studies, swatches — First full bodice with ruffle hem, set against the pastel studies and rag samples it grew out of. The cloth and the drawings on one page.VII

Tasselled skirt detail with two-piece bodice and floral pastel studies — The tassel skirt photographed on stand — bodice and high-low fringe — with the pastel studies the colour was drawn from.VIII

Full development page — bodice, full skirt with ruffle hem, pastel studies — Full development view — the assembled look in progress, framed by the studies that produced it.IX

Centrefold — full marigold and tassel look on the body

Plate X · Centrefold — the marigold-and-tassel look

Ruffle and face studies — surface development

Surface — ruffle & face studiesPlate XI

Tassel as a memory of the loom.

The tassel began as a research drawing — the strand, not the cloth. Each cluster is hand-dyed in maroon, ochre and rose, built in rows across the bodice diagonal so the weight of the craft reads on the body.

The ground is an electric cotton blue — a deliberate refusal of the heritage browns, so that the jamdani motif underneath is read as living rather than archival. The machine work is visible in places, and kept visible: this cloth is made, and it wants to say so.

The face studies are a parallel project — a private vocabulary that finds its way back into the print, the ruffle, the way colour falls on cloth.

Reference page — Erdem and Zimmermann SS26 alongside the FMP final look — Reference alongside the look — Erdem and Zimmermann SS26 framing my own piece in the middle. Where I'm aiming the silhouette.XII

Tech sheet · in progress

Palette, cloth, and the craft
that carries it.

Working reference for the materials, palette and techniques developed through the FMP so far. Jamdani cloth is sourced directly from weavers in Dhaka; tassels are dyed in the Leicester studio.

Maroon

Primary — tassel field, border weave, reference ground.

RGB 142 · 42 · 42

Ochre

Accent — secondary tassel run, warp-gold highlight.

RGB 194 · 138 · 59

Indigo

Ground & ink — motif line, heritage contrast.

RGB 30 · 38 · 69

Rose

Tassel mid-tone — softens the maroon transition.

RGB 176 · 84 · 104

Jamdani voile

Hand-woven cotton — sheer, with discontinuous supplementary weft.

55 gsm · handle: airy, crisp

Calico ground

Heavyweight cotton — foundation for the painted drape and ruffle.

180 gsm · handle: dry, firm

How it is being made.

Research → Paint → Dye → Build

Research.

Dhaka visits. Swatches collected, artisans documented, motif language noted.

Paint.

Oil-pastel floral studies — the print vocabulary that will sit with the jamdani.

Dye.

Tassel skeins dyed in maroon, ochre and rose — tested for hand and drop.

Build.

Tassel rows stitched onto bodice; ruffle hem assembled from printed fragments.

Chapter IV

Final shoot — the look on the body.

Crimson ground, marigold garlands, the tasselled bodice in full light. Three frames and a detail.

Plates XIII–XVIportrait
triptych
skirt & seated

Plate XIII · Cover portrait

Look 01 — the marigold halo. Hand-dyed tassel · printed voile & calico · on red ground

Studio · Leicester · 2026

Triptych of the final FMP look — full, mid, seated — Three frames in sequence — the marigold halo and tasselled bodice photographed front, mid and seated. The story of the look in one page.XIV

Printed ruffle skirt detail — close-up of tassel bodice and chiffon hem — Detail — tasselled bodice running into the printed ruffle hem, with marigolds falling at the foot. Texture, print, flower in one frame.XV

Seated portrait — marigold strands across the lap — Seated, looking off-frame, with marigold strands across the lap. The cloth at rest — and what holds it together when nothing is moving.XVI

End of folio № 02 — in progress

The cloth remembers.

— Tithi.

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Jamdani,re-threaded.