Page 64 - MASALA Magazine Vol.15 Issue 3 | February - March 2024

Kulthorn Narula pulls a thread on the textile
industry based on over five decades’ experience.
B Y AIDEN
JE WELLE GONZ ALE S

hen I met Kulthorn Narula, a
mainstay in the fabric industry
in Thailand for 52 years, he
asks me in his usual soft-spoken,
knowledgeable way if I knew what
went into producing the fabric for
the floral dress I was wearing. “After
the fabric is woven, it has to be
scoured and then bleached, and
then there’s batching, printing,
steaming, washing, drying, and
finishing,” he explains. “Each
machine for each of these processes
costs THB 20-30 million, so you
can see why the fabric industry is
such a big investment.”

I admitted that I hadn’t given
much thought to what went into
making our clothes, or indeed
how ubiquitous fabric was in our
everyday lives, and Kulthorn tells
me with a laugh, “even the recent
resurgence of the ‘elephant pants’
trend that the whole country is
wearing now is important to our
industry. Factories are loaded with
these prints, and we have to keep
up.”