Take a ‘holiday at home’ in a joyful summer dress from Pink City Prints
If you’re looking for some ‘holiday at home’ inspiration, click on over to Pink City Prints. The slow fashion brand specialising in beautiful, hand-printed dresses in natural fabrics is guaranteed to make you feel good. Founder and Glasgow School of Art graduate, Molly Russell created the label whilst visiting ‘The Pink City’, Jaipur, India, six years ago, ‘I felt so inspired by the joy and magic of traditional craft techniques passed down through generations,’ Molly tells me, ‘Watching these artisans at work was an incredible privilege. Their skills take years to master and help bring a garment to life – but they are under threat from mass production.’ Wanting to do something about it, she bought fabric in local shops, designed a small collection, practically on the spot, and two months later the Pink City Prints arrived in London; to be immediately snapped up by friends and family.
In order to celebrate the talent she’d seen in Jaipur, Molly saved up the money to return and began working with local block printers and embroiderers, ‘I had no fashion experience,’ she admits, ‘ so learnt on the job, making mistakes as I went.’
(Left to right) Lollipop Stripe Cindy Dress, Sky Trellis Positano dress and the green tulip Isabel dress
On the Pink City Prints’ website, customers can shop by the different techniques, such as: block printing, hand looming and hand embroidery. ‘ An embroidered dress can take up to three days to complete,’ continues Russell, ‘Block printing is a little quicker, but this can only be completed during certain times of the year due to weather conditions. Hand looming is an extensive process, it takes the weaver up to two days on a wooden loom, which requires great patience. Each different technique takes years to master, and requires high levels of skill and concentration.’
‘We’re committed to supporting the artisans responsible for making our pieces,’ adds Russell, ‘As we’ve got to know our makers first-hand and built relationships with them, we’ve realised even more how important it is to treat everyone in the supply chain with respect. Working days are eight hours long with regular breaks, holidays given and salaries are at least double minimum wage and each workshop has been vetted.’
Block printing
Like so many other small businesses, Pink City Prints has had to deal with the effects of the global pandemic, and the disruption to production. ‘The safety of our colleagues in India is obviously our priority. Production has had to slow down or stop at various times, and we’ve had to adapt to new working conditions and guidelines. As the Delta variant took hold in India we set up sample sales and fundraisers to support charities working on Covid relief.’
The PCP printing team and tailoring team
Looking forward, Russell hopes to find more artisans across the world and to continue to expand Pink City Prints. She’s recently travelled to Mexico and would love to bring even more colour, creativity and fun to her future collections. ‘ I like to know where my clothes come from – wearing a dress that brings sunshine and light and connects you to the incredible craftspeople who made it, can’t help but put you in a good mood.’
Founder Molly Russell
Find out more at Pink City Prints.
Discussion (8 Comments)
Oh how brilliant! – I’m so pleased to hear this. Thank you for letting me know, Katie.
Julia Hamilton says:
I love this: it has to be the way ahead. I also love seeing pictures of the PCP team. If ‘global’ fashion is to stay its going to have to be done like this. A model for the future.
Sara says:
Not sure if the clothes are for me, but what an impressive way to do fashion/style. Would love to see more companies adopting such ethical practices -especially the big ones…….!
bev says:
What a heartwarming post – reaffirms my faith in human-nature. Such beautiful dresses AND many modelled by ordinary sized women who are not modelly-thin. Slow fashion at it’s best!
Emma says:
A while ago I made the decision to be much more careful about the clothes I buy. I love clothes and the emotional and moral uplift they can bring. However, I also feel a personal duy to do whatever I can, in my small way, to lessen my impact on the environment and be more sustainable. I researched PCP for a while and treated myself to a dress for my birthday at the start of the summer. It is absolutely gorgeous and a joy to wear. I also want to say how incredibly helpful they were when I asked a couple of questions and genuinely happy when I sent a email to express how much I loved my dress. Beautiful clothes, excellent values and superb customer services. Thanks, Alyson, for this post.
I think these are beautiful prints and I love all the colors! Esp. the fabric shown being printed in shades of red/crimson on white. What a lovely thing to support! I’d like to respectfully ask, however, what about the plain old checking gingham-style fabrics and stripes? These seem like something one could find anywhere – are they perhaps priced lower than the very distinctive prints? I wish to be encouraging, not a scold, but was surprised to see the fresh, original prints being offered in the same line. Thanks for thinking about this.
Mrs Tonia says:
These seem excellent summer dresses with good credentials. Glad to know about this brand. It reminds me of the block print dresses I used to buy and wear from Anoki. Not needing more summer clothing since I’m going nowhere warm this year unfortunately I shall make a note of this business for summer 2022. Good to know about PCP.
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Pink City Prints is a wonderful brand that lives by its values. It makes beautiful items of clothing and places great importance on being respectful towards the environment and the people it employs. Molly is also extremely generous to charities here in the UK and in India. I speak from personal experience as I am Chair of the Board at the Little Angel Theatre in Islington and I approached Pink City Prints about donating a dress for our fundraising last year. Molly donated a number of items to help us raise money for our digital puppetry show which has been touring to NHS children’s hospital wards this past month. We are hugely grateful to Molly and her Pink City Prints’ colleague Millie for their support. Thank you, Alyson, for sharing this special brand with your TNMA readers.