A thread. 

If you think about it, almost everything we wear begins with a thread. A single strand, woven or knitted together with countless others, forms the very fabric of our lives — quite literally. From the soft cotton saree your grandmother has worn faithfully for the past twenty years to that ratty old T-shirt your mother keeps threatening to turn into a dusting rag, every piece of clothing can be traced back to that one humble thread.

The Noolu Collective, founded by a group of students from Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Bengaluru, is built around this very idea. The word 'Noolu' means thread in Kannada, Malayalam, and Tamil, a fitting name for a design and textile collective that celebrates the thread as a metaphor for connection, identity, and continuity. Noolu views fashion as far more than just the clothes on your back; it is a living form of self-expression, a marker of identity, and a reflection of the socio-cultural and environmental forces that shape us.

Speaking to Homegrown, Noolu’s founders reflected on what pushed them to start the collective in the first place, explaining, "As students we felt a desperate need for a space to be rebellious, political and expressive while questioning, addressing and understanding the world around us through the lens of fashion. So we created Noolu to diverge from the superficialities of mainstream fashion and highlight its deeply contextual and socio-cultural rooting."

The collective is open to all, hosting reading circles and workshops that encourage people to engage with textiles in hands-on and meaningful ways. Their recent saree draping Workshop invited participants to rediscover the timeless art of draping. As someone who learnt how to do this in my first year of college by watching fifteen different YouTube videos and getting yelled at by my mom on video call, this workshop would have beena lifesaver.

Beyond skill-sharing, Noolu also aims to platform and collaborate with emerging local artists, helping them bring personal design projects and creative concepts to life through collective effort. Their latest mixed media photo series, a triptych called 'Mard Ki Tarah' (Like A Man), examines what masculinity is supposed to stylistically look like in a modern desi man. The project interrogates the effect of colonisation and how it has shaped our perception on what pieces of apparel are deemed ‘manly’ for men, and the quiet erasure of ornamentation and softness across modern male menswear. 

At its core, Noolu is a reminder that everything — from fabric to identity — begins with a thread. And perhaps, by tracing that thread, we can begin to weave new narratives about who we are and how we choose to be seen.

You can follow them on Instagram here, and join their collective via this link.

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