The jaali as a cut

Stand in a stone courtyard at noon and look at the floor. The light does not arrive in one piece. It comes through a jaali, a screen of stone that is mostly air, and lands as a field of small stars.

The pattern is not drawn on the stone. It is drawn by what was cut out of it. The mason removed material, and the sun did the rest. That is the idea we took into cloth: the design is the hole.

The pierced panel

The panel on the Jaali jeans runs down the outside of each leg. It is cut in a repeat of eight point stars, each one punched through the 12 oz denim, then bound at the edge so it holds its shape and does not fray. Behind the panel sits a strip of raw cotton, cut slightly wider than the opening. The cotton does two jobs. It stops the leg from pulling open, and it gives the stars a pale ground, so the cut reads as a shadow even in flat light.

The Jharokha top

The Jharokha top uses the same cut at a smaller scale, on the left side of the body. Here the lining is different. It is cotton in a skin tone, kept thin, so what shows through the openings is warm and soft against the hard denim. The jharokha is a balcony window, and the idea is the same: a wearer who can be seen out of, and partly seen into.

Why it is a cut and not a print

A print sits on the surface and can be any pattern. A pierced panel is part of the structure. It changes how the cloth hangs and moves, and it cannot be copied by changing the ink. It also costs something. Every star is a small decision about how much of the fabric to give up and how much to keep, and a panel with too many holes will not hold the leg.

We keep the repeat wide enough that the denim between the stars is still a wall. Mostly air, but still a wall.