मत्स्य · shirts for men, made in India
We begin with shirts.
Nine of them, each named for a moment of the flood: the rain, the deep water, the net, the silt it left, and the first light after. The fish is stitched small at the chest, and nothing else is added.
A stripe is rain.
Rain falls. So a stripe runs down the shirt and never across it. On Hard Rain it comes in pairs and small groups, burgundy and grey on white, the way a downpour does.
A check is the lattice.
The planking of the boat. The net Manu tied. Lines crossing lines, holding what they were made to hold.
The fish grew until no vessel could hold it.
the matsya story · मत्स्य
The flood, and after
Deluge
An indigo-blue slub crossed by pale woven bands, like water lines. Of all of them, this one is the flood itself.
Deluge
First Light
A light open check in red-orange, mustard, sage and slate. After the flood, the first thing to return is colour.
First LightThe plain shirts
The striped shirt
The checked shirts
A good cloth is chosen because it is good. Each shirt is sewn at fifteen to seventeen stitches to the inch, the fish stitched small at the chest, and the rest left alone. The cloth, in numbers.
Letters
We write when there is something worth saying — a new cloth, a shirt back in stock. Rarely, and never twice about the same thing.