If you caught our National Day post about the beginnings of Wray, you'd know that we were a brand new company launched just before the global lockdowns in 2020; that first year of operating forced us to really slow down and be mindful of how and what we were producing.
In many ways, the end of 2023 took me back to this mindset as the retail landscape has changed and forced so many small businesses like ours to pivot or even close down. So when planning our collections for 2024, I looked back at our first year to be reminded and re-inspired about the magic and joy of taking things slow and connecting back to our roots.
(Left: fabric swatches and design specs for our first collection. Right: fabric swatches for our second, some of the colors served as inspiration for our collections this year.)
For our first collection, I had scoured the storerooms of our fabric printers in a small village near Udaipur, Rajasthan and found a very limited amount of Bandhani fabrics (learn more about Bandhani at our workshop collaboration hosted by with Autumn, sign up here!) in colors I immediately loved. Reproducing them though for production proved to be a difficult task!
Left to Right: The original sample I wore during photo recce with Nik, was of an earthy mustard but production came out a brighter mustard, which we ended up making our Leila dress pumpkin in.
The labor intensive, handmade nature of our fabrics meant that sometimes, we just could not make more of it; like our Rue dress rose above made in a cotton/silk Maheshwari blend. If you have one of these then you own 1 of only a handful of this very limited edition piece.
(Left to Right: Rue light indigo, Mila navy, Kora multi)
Luckily for us though, some colors are more easily achievable. Inspired by the light indigo of our Rue dress, and the easy wearing silhouettes of our Mila dress and Kora top, this season we've reimagined the styles that started it all for us into the brand new Rania dress and Orla top.
I tend to gravitate towards certain colors and have realized we do a version of Lilac every year! This year we've brought one of my favorite colors in two completely new styles, the Emmy Wrap dress and the Bryn Wrap top:
Another common thread across the years are the pintucked styles we first introduced in 2022
(Left to Right: The Afia dress which sold out at our first Boutique fairs, the Sachi Dress midnight, and the Sachi Dress Lilac which we relaunched this year!)
For our latest collection, we've put our most intricately hand crafted styles in a bright mint: the Tula dress and the Malti top.
All of these new styles will be launching exclusively at Design Orchard this Saturday, August 24th, along with a selection of pieces from our collections this year. Staying true to our roots, this is a limited edition, small batch produced collection so make sure to drop by this weekend!
