Berry Cheques Frill Tote

Not every treasure is ancient. Some are made by printers who know exactly what they are doing and decide to do something unexpected with it.
The chequerboard is not a traditional Bagru motif. The printers of Bagru have spent centuries working with butis and jaals, with flowering vines and repeating medallions, with the vocabulary of Mughal court textiles and Rajput village cloth. The chequerboard is none of those things. It is a block-cut grid, orange and pink, large and unambiguous, pressed onto cotton with the same hand and the same wooden block that would ordinarily be carrying a lotus or a leaf.
What makes it a Bagru piece is not the pattern but the process. The blocks are cut by hand. The printing is done by a chhipa, a printer working across the length of the cloth, placing each impression by eye, aligning the grid repeat without the mechanical precision of a screen. Look closely at the squares and you will find the slight unevenness that only comes from a hand at work: a grid that is almost perfectly regular, but not quite. That almost is everything.
The result is a pattern that feels both modern and handmade, a contemporary colour story told through a centuries-old technique. The same cloth is gathered into a double frill running all the way around the tote, the chequerboard breaking into movement as the fabric pleats. The lining continues the palette in orange and pink stripe, so the inside of the bag is as considered as the outside.
A Bagru printer's answer to a question nobody thought to ask them.

Every Berry Cheques tote is printed and stitched by hand, so no two are quite the same. The chequerboard is aligned by eye rather than by machine, so the grid will shift very slightly from one repeat to the next. The squares may sit fractionally wider or narrower in places, and the registration between the orange and pink blocks will vary across the cloth. The ground colour may carry its own tonal variation from piece to piece. The double frill is gathered by hand, so its fullness and pleat depth will shift slightly around the tote. This is a contemporary pattern made by a traditional hand, and the evidence of that hand is in every piece.

• Wipe clean with a damp cloth for daily care
• Machine-wash on a gentle cycle in cool water
• Wash separately the first time, colours may release slightly
• Air-dry away from direct sunlight
• Steam or iron on low heat if needed

UK delivery

• Standard delivery — £5.95, free over £60. Royal Mail tracked, 3–5 working days.
• Express delivery — £7.95. Royal Mail tracked, 1–2 working days.
• Order before 2pm Monday–Friday for same-day dispatch. Orders placed after 2pm, or over the weekend, dispatch the next working day.

International delivery

We ship worldwide. Rates and timeframes calculated at checkout based on your destination. Customs duties and import taxes are not included and are the customer's responsibility.

Returns

You have 14 days from receiving your order to return it. Items must be unused, in their original condition and packaging.

For change-of-mind returns, we email you a Royal Mail returns link — no printer needed, no postage to pay upfront. The cost of return postage is deducted from your refund.

For faulty, damaged or incorrect items, we cover return postage in full and refund your original delivery charge. Sale items are final.

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Every piece in our collection is sourced directly from artisan workshops we know by name. We pay fairly, we visit often, and we believe the people who make a thing should be valued as much as the thing itself. We use natural dyes wherever possible, plastic-free packaging in every order, and we donate a share of every sale back into the craft communities we work with.

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