Getting a terracotta set colour-matched to your saree

This is the thing terracotta does that metal cannot. A gold set gives you gold. A clay set can be mixed to whatever colour you need, because the pigment goes into the clay before firing rather than onto a finished surface. If you have a saree you love and nothing that works with it, this is the answer.

How it works

Send us a photograph on WhatsApp and tell us which set you want it in. We mix the base tone to match, fire it, and ship it. Custom orders take about four weeks from the point we confirm the colour — the making is six days, the rest is the queue.

What photograph to send

Colour in photographs is unreliable, so how you take it matters more than the camera.

• Daylight, indirect. Near a window but out of direct sun. Tube light turns everything green and yellow bulbs turn everything warm.
• No flash. Flash flattens silk and lifts the colour a shade or two.
• Fill the frame with the fabric. A photograph of the whole saree on a hanger tells us less than a close photograph of the border and body.
• Include the blouse if it differs. We often match the blouse rather than the saree, and it changes the answer.
• Send two or three. One from the body, one from the border, one from the zari if there is any.

If you can, photograph the fabric next to something white — a sheet of paper works. It gives us a reference point and takes the guesswork out.

When matching exactly is the wrong idea

Sometimes the honest advice is not to match.

An exact match against a plain saree can read as flat, because the jewellery disappears into the drape instead of sitting against it. For plain silk we will often suggest going a shade deeper or lighter than the fabric rather than level with it. The set still belongs to the outfit but you can see it.

For printed and multi-coloured sarees, matching one colour out of five usually looks arbitrary. A multi-colour set is the better answer — it picks up several shades at once and looks intentional rather than half-matched. Chandrika, Abinaya and Thamizh exist for this.

And for heavy zari work, antique gold is almost always right. Matching the saree colour puts the set in competition with the zari; aged gold sits alongside it.

What we cannot do

Fluorescent and neon shades do not survive firing — the pigments that produce them break down at high heat. Very pale pastels are possible but unpredictable, because any unevenness in the clay body shows through a thin coat. Metallic finishes other than our gold and silver we do not offer.

Blue and teal we will make, but with a caveat: both shift under kiln heat, so we can get close to a shade and not guarantee it exactly. We will tell you that before you commit rather than after. There is more on why that happens here.

Bulk and wedding orders

For boutiques and wedding parties above 25 pieces we can match a single colour across a full run, which is worth doing if a group is dressing alike. Write to info@industerracotta.com with quantities and dates.

For anything else, WhatsApp is faster. Send the photograph, tell us which design, and someone from the workshop will reply with what we think will work — including, sometimes, that a stock set already does the job and a custom order is not needed.