# Studio Bagru

> An index of artisan businesses and a guide for buyers, beginning with the block printers of Bagru, Rajasthan.

Studio Bagru is pausing its business and becoming a guide to the block printers of Bagru, Rajasthan: who they are, how to work with them, and what to expect from cloth made by hand.

Website: https://www.studiobagru.com
Contact: hello@studiobagru.com · WhatsApp +91 911 611 2456
Location: Bagru, Rajasthan 303007, India

## Status (September 2026)
Studio Bagru has paused its business operations as of September 2026. Here is exactly what that means if you have an order in production, hold a workshop booking, or were about to get in touch.

### Orders in production: Unchanged
- Every order in production is completed, quality checked and shipped as agreed.
- Timelines, process photographs and the final QC report continue as before.
- The final 50% is due before shipping, after you approve the QC report, exactly as in your terms.
- The same team looks after your order to the end. Write to hello@studiobagru.com with your order reference.

### Workshops already booked: Valid
- Your workshop runs on the date confirmed to you, with the same family and the same tables.
- Optional Jaipur–Bagru transport can still be arranged two days in advance.
- The refund policy you booked under still applies.
- Questions or changes: WhatsApp +91 911 611 2456 with your booking name.

### New orders and bookings: Closed
- We are not taking new production orders, sampling requests or workshop bookings.
- To commission printing in Bagru, go directly to a workshop in the index and use the guide to brief it well.
- Where a workshop has asked us to, we make the introduction ourselves.
- Want to be listed, or know a workshop that should be? Tell us.

## A letter from Jeremy Fritzhand, co-founder
Studio Bagru is pausing its business. The printers of Bagru are not.

Every order in production will be finished and shipped as agreed. Every workshop already booked will run on the date you were given. We are not taking new orders or new bookings.
I came to Bagru in 2009 as a student on a term abroad, and came back the next year on a Minerva Fellowship from Union College: ten thousand dollars and a one-way ticket. The printers here had a four-hundred-year-old craft and no way to reach the people who wanted it. Cloth came from a trader, went to a family to print, and went back out at seven rupees a metre, through eight sets of hands, to a customer who never learned who made it.
So in 2010 we started Bagru Textiles and put the name of the village on the door. Know your source. The artisans own it themselves, and it is thriving.
In 2016 Davis Cutter, Curt Myers and I started Studio Bagru to do the same for more families. We printed for designers and hotels in more than fifty countries, brought journalists to the village instead of buying advertisements, and welcomed visitors to the printing tables. The intention never changed: home-based artisans as independent business owners, named, findable, paid directly, and free to say no.
Sixteen years on, much of that is true. The families we worked with take their own orders, host their own guests, and answer their own customers. We used to stand in the middle, and we are not needed there now.
This site is becoming an index of artisan businesses, beginning with the block printers of Bagru, so you can find the workshop and the person behind the cloth. It opens as each workshop confirms what it wants published. It is also a guide to how printing here works: how to brief a workshop, what a fair timeline and a fair price look like, and what to expect from cloth made by hand.
There is a line from Lao Tzu: “When the work is done, the people will say: we have done this ourselves.” I think we are close.
Thank you for every order, every visit, and every introduction. The printing tables are still here. Go and see.

Jeremy Fritzhand, Co-founder, Studio Bagru, September 2026

## The story of Studio Bagru
### 2009: Go and see.
Jeremy had first seen India at twelve, backpacking Karnataka with his parents and two brothers. He went back in his final year at Union College with Harold Fried, who ran the college’s social entrepreneurship programme, and Alicia DeNicola, the anthropology professor. One day, travelling through Rajasthan, the group stopped in a village called Bagru.
Alicia DeNicola endorsed his application for the fellowship, and she made the introductions to the hosts in the Bagru community.
What they found was hand-block printing: a technology that reaches back four thousand years to the Harappan civilisation, still practised at the kitchen door. Carved wooden blocks, trays of colour, and lengths of cloth spread across open ground to dry in the sun.
It was the trip where the light bulb went off.

### 2010: A one-way ticket.
Union College offers graduating students a Minerva Fellowship: ten thousand dollars to go abroad for a year and build some kind of hybrid business, part enterprise and part social mission. Jeremy applied to live in Bagru, work alongside the printers, and share what he knew about marketing and the web. He was awarded the grant.
Two people at the college made the fellowship possible: Professor Harold Fried, and Tom McAvoy, who directed the programme.
The other fellows scattered across the world. He went to India with a one-way ticket, moved into the village, and started learning the craft from the inside: stirring dye vats, carrying cloth to the drying ground, sitting with the block carver.

### 2010: Seven rupees a metre.
The printers had the skill and the four-hundred-year method. What they did not have was the market. Fabric and designs arrived from a trader; the family processed, printed and finished the cloth; and it went back out, paid by the metre. Seven rupees a metre.
From there it passed through a wholesaler, an exporter, an importer, an agent, a designer and a retailer before it reached the person who would wear it. Each step added margin, language, and distance, until the family who made the cloth was the one nobody downstream could name.
Seventy years of India opening to trade had put a chain of people between the artisan and the buyer, each capitalising on skills of marketing and language the printers had never been given.

### 2010 – 2012: Bagru Textiles. Know your source.
The answer was to cut out the middleman and hand digital marketing and commerce straight to the home-based artisans, so that they could find their own markets. Then name the company after the place and what they do. Nobody outside Rajasthan knew what Bagru was, so Bagru Textiles put it on the door.
A hand-painted banner outside the office of the Bagru hand-block printing artisans’ society announced the offer in Hindi: through bagrutextiles.com, any printing unit could have its own web page and sell directly, and the service was free. Contact Jeremy Fritzhand. Office hours, eleven to three.
Two principles held from the start. Know your source: the printer is named, never anonymised behind a label. And build with what they have: no retraining, no redesign of the craft, no asking a family to become something other than what it already was.
Bagru Textiles was, and still is, an independently owned artisan enterprise. Jeremy worked in it day to day until the end of 2012; it thrived, and it thrives today, under the printers who own it. A fifty-thousand-dollar endowment to Union College meant the fellowship kept sending graduates to Bagru after he left.
Emily LaCroix held the fellowship in Bagru in 2011 and carried the work through her year. Jessica Sarrantonio, Eric Spector, David Masterson and Davis Cutter held it in the years that followed. Each of them lived in the village and worked alongside the printers, and the enterprise is as much theirs as anyone’s.

### 2013 – 2015: The years the industry had to answer for itself.
After Bagru came an MBA at Thunderbird, where Jeremy was president of the student body and spent an exchange term at the Indian School of Business. Then a job at MGF Sourcing: supply-chain management for a company moving billions of dollars of American retail through factories in Hong Kong, China, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
It was the volume end of the trade, and the years the industry was forced to answer for itself. The Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Savar, Bangladesh, in 2013. “Who made my clothes?” went from a slogan to a question a serious brand had to be able to answer.
His heart was still in a village with a four-hundred-year answer.

### 2016: Back to Bagru. Studio Bagru.
By 2016 Bagru Textiles was thriving as an enterprise owned and run by the artisans. The question was how to scale that impact beyond one company. Jeremy returned to Bagru and co-founded Studio Bagru to answer it, with Davis Cutter, who had held the fellowship in Bagru himself, and Curt Myers.
The studio kept telling the story, kept making cloth, and shipped to more than fifty countries, working B2B the whole way with fashion designers, hotels and houses abroad. Cushions, quilts, robes, totes, tablecloths and shirting, designed with clients abroad and printed by the same families in the same village.
It was never about one company. The studio introduced buyers to other family-owned workshops in Bagru and showed them how it had started and how it told the story. Over the years more than two hundred artisans took part in business-development training.
The goal was independence. Better business owners, not better suppliers.
Chhipa, the printers’ surname, is also the word for what they do: to print.

### 2018 – 2023: The journalists came to the village.
The studio never bought coverage. Jeremy wrote to his network, to publishers and to journalists, and then got them to Bagru to see the history for themselves.
The New York Times came for “The Ancient Art of Jaipur Block Printing”. Forbes wrote that women in India were putting a face to your clothes. The Financial Times followed a designer’s journey to India’s “Mecca of printing”. The Washington Post listed Bagru among the destinations where you can craft your own memento, National Geographic asked how to spot a fake souvenir, and Adventure.com met the families keeping Rajasthani block printing alive.

### 2019 – 2025: The printing tables opened.
Visitors had always asked to try the blocks. So the studio opened its tables: a single day walking Bagru’s Fields of Colour, visiting the block carvers and dyers, and printing a tote, a scarf or a rug of your own; or a full week inside the craft, setting up an indigo vat, printing dabu resist, mixing natural pigments, and finishing with a day of jahota printing in the neighbouring village, all alongside master printer Govind ji.
The classes were run by a family that has printed for seven generations, with lunch cooked at home. Guests wrote about the welcome as much as the printing. Tripadvisor named Studio Bagru a Travellers’ Choice winner in 2020, and again in 2024 and 2025, placing it in the top ten per cent of attractions worldwide.

### 2020: The year the order book stopped.
Covid hit, and the order book stopped. When the airport reopened, Jeremy and his fiancée, who is from Assam, flew to Mysore and completed a yoga teacher training. They married in Nagaon, Assam, in 2021, and moved to Cincinnati later that year.
The studio kept its printing tables.

### 2026: The pause, and the guide.
Sixteen years after the Minerva Fellowship, Studio Bagru is pausing its business operations. Every order in production will be completed and shipped as agreed. Every class already booked will run. No new orders or bookings are being taken.
The site you are reading becomes two things. An index of artisan businesses, so that a buyer can find the workshop and the person behind the cloth and write to them directly. And a guide for buyers: how printing in Bagru actually works, how to brief a workshop, what fair timelines and prices look like, and what to expect from cloth made by hand.
The middle is where the studio used to stand. It is no longer where it is needed.

## The people who carried it
None of this was one person’s work. The Minerva Fellowship sent graduate after graduate to Bagru, and each of them lived in the village and worked alongside the printers.

### Union College
- Harold Fried (Professor) https://www.linkedin.com/in/harold-fried-85657b15
- Alicia DeNicola (Professor of anthropology) https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicia-denicola
- Tom McAvoy (Director, Minerva Fellowship)

### Fellows who worked in Bagru
- Jeremy Fritzhand (2010) https://www.linkedin.com/in/fritzhand
- Emily LaCroix (2011) https://www.centralmaine.com/2011/07/25/project-takes-area-woman-to-india_2011-07-24/
- Jessica Sarrantonio https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-sarrantonio
- Eric Spector https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-spector-16093942
- David Masterson https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-d-masterson
- Davis Cutter https://www.linkedin.com/in/davis-cutter-4a811478

### Studio Bagru, co-founded 2016
- Jeremy Fritzhand https://www.linkedin.com/in/fritzhand
- Davis Cutter https://www.linkedin.com/in/davis-cutter-4a811478
- Curt Myers https://www.linkedin.com/in/curt-myers

## The Bagru index of artisan businesses
Listings: https://www.studiobagru.com/artisans

The index has not opened and no workshop is listed yet. A listing is published only once that workshop has confirmed the people, the techniques and the contact channels it wants published.

### Who does what in Bagru
- **Block carver (Kharadi)**: Carves the design into seasoned hardwood, usually sheesham or teak. A design is normally a set of blocks: the outline, the fill, and the ground. Three to six days for a set.
- **Printer (Chhipa)**: Prints the cloth by hand at a long padded table, one impression at a time, aligning by eye. Thirty to thirty-five metres of a simple repeat in a day. In Bagru the surname and the verb are the same word.
- **Dyer (Rangrez)**: Runs the vats and the boiling: indigo, alizarin for red, and the harda bath that prepares the cloth. Some printing houses dye in house; many send cloth to a dyer.
- **Washer (Dhobi)**: Washes the printed cloth to clear the resist and fix the colour, then spreads it to dry on the ground. The Fields of Colour are the washers’ work.
- **Tailor and finisher (Darzi)**: Cuts and stitches finished products: totes, robes, cushions, table linen. Calendering, labels and packing sit here too.
- **Exporter or courier**: Moves the goods. A workshop with an Import Export Code can ship directly on a commercial invoice; without one, a courier or a merchant exporter does the paperwork.

## The buyer's guide to block printing in Bagru
Full guide: https://www.studiobagru.com/guide

### The process
01. **The block (Thappa)**: Every print begins as a set of blocks carved by hand into seasoned hardwood, usually sheesham or teak. A design is normally three blocks: the rekh, which prints the outline; the datta, which fills it; and the gadh, which prints the ground. A set takes three to six days to carve. If you bring your own artwork, ask for a clean line drawing of one repeat, with the repeat size in centimetres. Fine lines carve well; very fine lines and large flat areas both misbehave when printed.
02. **Preparing the cloth (Harda)**: Grey cloth is washed to remove starch and sizing, then steeped in harda, a solution of myrobalan fruit. The tannin turns the cloth a pale yellow. This is the Bagru ground you may know as “cream”: the tannin is what lets iron black and alum red bind. Bagru cloth is usually cotton cambric or mulmul; linen and silk are possible but need a workshop that has printed them before.
03. **Printing (Chhapai)**: The printer works at a long padded table with the cloth pinned flat, dipping the block in a tray of colour and pressing it down with the heel of the hand, one impression at a time, aligning each to the last by eye. A simple one-block repeat runs thirty to thirty-five metres a day; a three-block design in three colours takes proportionally longer. Two traditional colours are printed this way. Syahi is a black made by fermenting scrap iron with jaggery; it turns black on harda-treated cloth. Begar is an alum mordant printed with gum; after washing, the cloth is boiled with alizarin, and red develops only where the alum was printed. Pigment printing uses ready-mixed, binder-based colours that are printed and cured without a dye bath. It is faster and more consistent, and it offers any colour you like. It lacks the depth of a dyed colour, because it sits on the cloth rather than in it.
04. **Resist (Dabu)**: Dabu is a mud resist: black clay, gum, lime and wheat chaff, mixed to a paste, printed with the block and dusted with sawdust so it will not smudge. Where the mud sits, dye cannot reach. The cloth is dried, dyed, and washed, and the pattern appears in reverse, pale on colour. Cracks in the dried mud let dye in, and the fine veining they leave is the signature of dabu. Ask for it or ask against it, but do not expect it to be identical from length to length.
05. **Indigo (Neel)**: Natural indigo is fermented with lime and a reducing agent, which is why dyers speak of the vat as something alive: it has to be fed and rested. The cloth is dipped and lifted repeatedly, comes out yellow-green, and turns blue in the air. Each dip deepens the shade, so “how many dips” is the question to ask when you specify a blue. Many workshops now keep a synthetic vat for consistency and a natural one for character. Ask which you are buying. Both are hand-dyed; only one is natural.
06. **Washing and the Fields of Colour (Dhulai)**: Printed cloth is washed in running water to clear the resist and fix the colour, boiled where red is being developed, then spread on open ground to dry in the sun. This is the sight Bagru is known for. It is also why natural-dye work slows in the monsoon: there is no sun to dry on. Water and sunlight are part of the recipe. A quote that promises natural indigo in August is a quote to read twice.
07. **Finishing (Silai)**: Dry cloth is calendered flat, checked, and either rolled as yardage or cut and stitched into product: totes, robes, cushion covers, table linen, quilts. Stitching may happen in the printing house or at a separate tailoring unit; ask which, because it changes the timeline and the price. Labels, hang tags and packing are simple to add if you send the materials or the artwork early.

### Minimums and timelines
- Pigment block printing: sampling 6–8 weeks; production 3–4 months; minimum 50 metres per design and colourway.
- Block printing, natural dyes: sampling 8–12 weeks; production 4–6 months; minimum 50 metres per design and colourway.
- Dabu resist and indigo: sampling 10–12 weeks; production 5–6 months; minimum 50 metres per design and colourway.
- Finished products (totes, robes, linen): sampling 6–10 weeks; production 3–6 months; minimum 35–80 pieces, by product.
- Payment: 50% advance to begin production, after samples are approved. 50% before shipping after you approve photographs and the QC report.

### Seasons
- October – February (Best): Dry, sunny, cool. Every technique, including natural dyeing and indigo, runs at full pace. Book early; it is also the visitor season.
- March – May (Good): Hot and dry. Everything still runs, though heavy natural-dye work slows in the afternoon heat. Holi falls in March and the village stops for it.
- June – September (Monsoon): Humid, with rain. Pigment printing continues under cover; natural dyeing and indigo slow or stop for want of sun. Do not schedule a natural-dye delivery for September without a margin.
- Diwali (October or November) closes workshops for a week or more. Sunday is usually a day off.

### What to expect from handmade cloth
- Registration: Where blocks meet, the join can drift by a millimetre or two. Small motifs hide it; large geometric repeats show it. Design for it.
- Colour between lots: Natural dyes shift with the water, the season and the age of the vat. Two lots of the same indigo will differ. Specify a range, or order the whole run at once.
- Shrinkage: Cotton shrinks three to five per cent in the first wash. Pre-wash yardage before cutting garments, or ask the workshop to.
- Crocking: Indigo rubs off at first, on hands and on light-coloured cloth beside it. It settles after a few washes. Warn your customers, or wash before you ship.
- Care: Cold wash, mild detergent, no bleach, dry in shade. Natural dyes fade gently over years in direct sun; that is the material, not a fault.
- Imperfection: A dropped impression, a blot at the selvedge, a slightly heavier hand on one line: each piece carries the maker’s hand. If you need machine uniformity, you need a machine.

### Glossary
- Bagru: A village 32 km west of Jaipur, Rajasthan, printing cloth by hand for at least four hundred years. Known for its cream harda ground, syahi black, begar red, dabu resist and indigo.
- Chhipa: A printer; also the printers’ surname. In Bagru the word for the work and the word for the family are the same.
- Chhipa Mohalla: The printers’ quarter of Bagru, where most printing houses are.
- Thappa: A hand-carved wooden printing block.
- Rekh, datta, gadh: The outline block, the fill block and the ground block that together print one design.
- Harda: Myrobalan. A tannin bath that turns cloth pale yellow and lets iron black and alum red bind.
- Syahi: Black, made from scrap iron fermented with jaggery.
- Begar: Alum mordant printed with gum; boiled with alizarin, it becomes red.
- Dabu: Mud resist: clay, gum, lime and wheat chaff, printed then dusted with sawdust.
- Neel: Indigo. A natural vat is fermented; the cloth turns blue in the air after each dip.
- Kashish: Ferrous sulphate, giving greys and browns.
- Bhuti: A small single motif, printed in scattered repeat. The Studio Bagru mark is a bhuti.
- Jaal: An all-over trellis or net pattern.
- Bel: A border vine.
- Mulmul: Fine, soft cotton muslin.
- Cambric: A light, closely woven cotton; the usual cloth for Bagru yardage.
- Strike-off: A printed sample of your design on your cloth, approved before the full run.
- MOQ: Minimum order quantity. In Bagru, usually 50 metres per design and colourway.
- IEC: Import Export Code. An Indian business needs one to export directly.

### FAQ
**Can I order less than fifty metres?** Sometimes, at sampling prices. A workshop may print a short length of an existing block for you at a per-metre rate well above production pricing, because setting up the table and the colours costs the same however long the run. For custom blocks, expect the carving cost regardless of length.

**Who owns a custom block?** Whoever you agree owns it. The default in Bagru is that the block stays with the workshop that carved and printed it. If exclusivity matters to you, pay for the block, say in writing that the design is yours, and take the blocks with you at the end of the order.

**How do I know a print is natural dye and not pigment?** Ask, and look at the back. Pigment sits on the surface and the reverse is much paler; dyed cloth is coloured through, so the back is nearly as strong as the front. Natural indigo also rubs off on a white cloth at first; pigment does not.

**Can one workshop combine printing with embroidery or weaving?** Printing houses print. Embroidery, dhurrie weaving and stitching are separate trades, sometimes in the same family and often not. A good printer will tell you who they send work to; ask to deal with that unit directly for anything that is not printing.

**Can I visit while my order is being made?** Usually, and you should. Arrange it in advance, expect to be fed, and bring photographs of the end product so that the family can see where their cloth goes. Bagru is under an hour from Jaipur.

**Will I get a certificate of authenticity?** Ask for a signed note from the workshop naming the printers, the techniques, and the origin of the cloth and dyes. It is a statement from the maker rather than a formal certification scheme, and worth more for it.

**How do I ship it home?** Under about thirty kilograms, an international courier (DHL, FedEx, UPS) collects from Jaipur and delivers door to door in a week; the workshop or its courier agent prepares the commercial invoice. Larger lots go by air freight through a forwarder. Sea freight is rarely worth it below a few hundred kilograms. Duties are yours to pay on arrival; check your country’s rate for printed cotton before you order.

**What about labour and fair pay?** Most Bagru printing houses are families working in their own homes; a large one employs a few printers from other families. Ask who prints your cloth and how they are paid. Prompt payment on your side is the single most effective thing you can do for fair pay on theirs.

## Archive of work (2016–2026)
- A Souvenir Hotel, Ulysses robes: Hotel robes in four colourways, each carrying the hotel’s own Ulysses flamingo print.
- A Souvenir Hotel, Ulysses fun totes: Tote bags in the same print, made for guests to carry away.
- Peter & Paul, Robe collection: Check robes photographed for an e-commerce launch.
- Lumière, Pillow collection: Decorative pillows in block prints and natural dyes, hand finished.
- Lumière, Dhurrie pillows: Flat-woven dhurrie combined with printed cloth.
- Lumière, Toiletry bags: Wash bags in the Lumière signature prints.
- STORY mfg., Indigo canna shadow: A cannabis-leaf print worked as an indigo shadow on jackets and shirting.
- STORY mfg., Short On Time jacket: Organic cotton-linen, block printed in the Strange Trip pattern and hand embroidered.
- STORY mfg., Shore shirt: The SS19 Sage Tea collection’s Shore Shirt, in several prints.
- STORY mfg., KC starter tees and bridge shorts: Organic cotton jersey tees with hand-block-printed bridge shorts.
- Hot Cactus, Los Angeles, Earthstar fungus workwear: Work bib, jacket and trousers printed with the star-shaped Earthstar mushroom.
- Beenanza, Artisan backpacks: Block-printed backpacks that soften at the edges and lighten with every walk.
- Imprinted Story, Indigo henna hand print: A henna pattern printed by hand in natural indigo by Sushila of We Print Bagru. Printed by Sushila, We Print Bagru.
- Imprinted Story, Weekender bag: Poonam Chhipa’s Tall Grass pattern on a bag built for the mountains. Printed by Poonam Chhipa, We Print Bagru.
- Veronika Drahotová, Tall Grass on silk: The same Tall Grass pattern, printed on silk for a designer’s dress. Printed by Poonam Chhipa, We Print Bagru.
- Jiří Pelcl, Petra ottomans: Cracked-earth blue on linen and pink imprints on canvas, upholstered as ottomans.
- Imprinted Story, Petra, lived in: The Petra prints in everyday family life.
- Seeker × Retriever, Lost in Bloom: Tropical-garden prints on reversible dresses and a thicker handwoven cotton.
- Sally Campbell Textiles, Lemon Delicious: Table linens in two sizes with extra-large napkins.
- Alex Mill × IXV Coffee, Capsule edition: A first block-printed capsule, made with Jenny Cooper of IXV Coffee.
- All Tribes Are Beautiful, Chessboard dhurrie: A flat-woven dhurrie with a chessboard pattern.
- Glorka, Original-print caftans: A second original print, developed together and cut as caftans.
- Archil Designs, Custom blocks: A first year of carving custom blocks for a designer’s own motifs.
- Peter & Paul, Collection debut: The Peter & Paul souvenir collection at launch.
- Strážnický Mo, Back at work: A designer visiting the printers with the next project in the making.

## Links
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/studiobagru
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/studiobagru
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/studio-bagru/
- Tripadvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g304555-d11645510-Reviews-Studio_Bagru-Jaipur_Jaipur_District_Rajasthan.html
- Jeremy Fritzhand: https://fritzhand.com