Pranay Baidya launches ‘Tant’ initiative to support weavers

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Apr 8, 2020

Kolkata-based designer Pranay Baidya has launched 'Tant' as an initiative to support weavers around Bengal. Tant will hold workshops and produce an exclusive collection of sarees and textiles. 

 
Designer Pranay Baidya has taken the current threat the ongoing coronavirus pandemic poses to India’s textile industry as impetus to increase support for artisans. Baidya’s new charitable initiative Tant aims to contribute to welfare of craft communities around Bengal, Elle India reported.
 
Tant will hold workshops around the Santipur, Phulia, Nadia, and Dhanikhali districts of West Bengal to empower weavers’ communities. Baidya will offer the weavers creative direction and share his textile design knowledge during the workshops. During the ongoing lockdown, workshops will take place via video-call and will be moved off-line in future.

Tant will produce a collection of sarees, woven by participating artisans in traditional Bengali style, as well as textiles. The sarees will feature a traditional two-to-four inch border and will be woven with fine cotton yarn with various decorative motifs. 
 
The collection of sarees and textiles produced by the weavers’ communities will retail from Baidya’s eponymous brand’s flagship store in Kolkata as well as multi-brand stores and e-commerce sites in India and overseas.

The collection will be priced from Rs 1,000 ($13.13) and all funds will go directly to the weavers.