Natural fibres only
Handloom cotton, washed linen, Chanderi silk, organza and kora silk. No synthetics, ever.
Since 2014
Cloth that remembers the hands that made it
Olive & Yarn began in a two-room space on Chithirai Street with three looms and a simple idea: make clothing the way Tamil Nadu has always made cloth — slowly, by hand, in fibres that breathe through a Madurai summer.
We work directly with eleven weaving families across Madurai, Chinnalapatti and Paramakudi. Cotton is sourced in the round, dyed in small vats, and woven on pit looms that have been in the same courtyards for generations.
Nothing is mass-produced. A single dress passes through nine pairs of hands before it reaches you, and every batch is capped at twenty pieces so the weave never becomes a deadline.
Fair, direct work
Weavers are paid per metre at rates set with them, in full, before a garment is sold.
Made in small batches
Twenty pieces or fewer per style, cut and finished in our own atelier in Madurai.
Inside the atelier
Bolts rest before they are cut
Patterns are drafted on paper, graded by hand, and every seam is finished so the inside of a garment looks as considered as the outside.
See what we are making now