Billing for your cloth and garment shop in Arunachal Pradesh
Metres of cloth, finished jackets and a family's part payment, together on one bill.
Tools for a counter of cloth lengths, blankets and ready-made jackets
Bills on your phone
A bill for a household's whole winter, three jackets, two blankets and a length of cloth, each in its own unit.
Credit book (khata)
A page for the family from the high village, kept for the year between its visits so the second visit starts from the first.
Low stock warnings
A level for woollen caps and socks, so the warning comes in the first cold week and not in the last.
Daily reports
Which jacket sizes and blanket kinds went on each day of the first cold fortnight, kept so next year's order starts there.
Orders to suppliers
The winter order to your supplier in the plains, with each parcel's blankets counted when the parcel is opened.
Why a hill cloth shop counts its metres twice
A customer asks why the hill blanket costs so much more
A customer who knows how slowly a blanket comes off a hill loom asks why yours costs far more than the one beside it. You know the reason, but the helper at the counter does not, and the customer hears two reasons in one afternoon. A rate with no reason behind it sounds like a guess, and she walks on to the next shop.
Cloth asked for by its pattern, not by its number
A customer asks for the cloth with the zigzag, or the one with the wide red band, and the roll has no name, only a number written in pencil. You show three rolls and she is not sure. A cloth she wanted is sold to someone else while she thinks, and a roll with an odd number sits on the shelf for a season.
A tailor across the hill road finds the cloth short
A customer takes three metres cut from the roll to a tailor in a village on the far side of the hill road. The tailor finds it a little short and sends her back. The road is a day lost for her, and she will think twice before she climbs to your counter again.
From the measured length to the tailor's finished suit
The plains parcel counted by blanket kind when it is opened
When the winter parcel from the plains is opened on the counter, count the factory blankets by kind and enter each count the same hour. The hand-woven ones from the hill looms are entered as they come in. The shelf and the phone then agree before the first customer asks for a warm one.
Wool and cotton yarn sold by weight beside cloth by the metre
If your shop also sells yarn to the weavers nearby, add each colour of wool and each cotton yarn as an item by the kilo or the hundred grams. A weaver's bill for yarn and a length of plain cloth comes out on one bill, and the stock of each yarn colour is counted apart from the cloth.
The zigzag roll and the red-band roll, found by the words she uses
Put the pattern in the name of the item: zigzag brown, wide red band, plain white. When a customer asks for the cloth with the zigzag, you pick it from the list by that name and bring one roll to the counter, not three. The bill carries the same words, so she can say them again to the next person who cuts her cloth.
.jpg){kind=link}
An artisan trust that brought its clusters, stores and exhibitions into one place
Rolls, sizes and winter stock: what cloth sellers here ask
My wool is bought by the kilo and sold by the ball. Can I count both?
Yes. Keep the wool by the kilo as one item and each ball as another. When you wind a kilo into balls, the counts are yours to set, and sales then run down the ball item.
School sweaters come in four colours and five sizes. Does each one need its own line?
Yes, if you want each counted. Name each sweater by its colour and size, such as green, size 30. The stock then shows which one is thin before the term starts.
The weaver comes down once a season, when the road is open, with all her blankets together. How do I read what sold since she last came?
Open her page. It shows what she left last time and what has sold since, blanket by blanket, so you pay her for the whole season in one sitting.
Jackets come up from the plains in one parcel before the road turns bad. How do I know how many of each size to ask for?
Name each jacket by its size, such as grey, size 38. Read how many of each size left the shop in the first cold weeks of last year, then look at what is still on your shelf and ask for the difference. The sizes that ran out first get the larger share of the parcel.
Monpa looms in Tawang and Apatani zigzags in Ziro
Monpa weaving in Tawang district is practised mostly by women, who make clothing, blankets and haversacks from wool and cotton yarn, and tents from yak hair. A cloth shop in the district sells beside this hand work, and a customer who knows what a hand-woven blanket takes to make looks hard at every rate on the counter. A buyer who knows how long a hand-woven piece takes to make asks about every rate with that in mind.
Apatani people of the Ziro Valley weave textiles for cultural festivals and religious rituals, with distinctive geometric and zigzag patterns. A shop in Ziro that sells plain cloth, thread and ready-made clothes sells to people who already know their own patterns well, and who ask for the colours and the lengths that suit them.