Create invite

Sivakasi matchbox

A vintage Sivakasi matchbox label for a Diwali cards night: Lakshmi and the photo frame are slapped down like labels, the title is printed a little out of register, and a struck match lights the details.

Free with a Snehpatrika ending · ₹99 without

Make this video invite

About this style

Sivakasi, in the Virudhunagar district of Tamil Nadu, became India's match town in the 1920s, when two local men, P. Ayya Nadar and A. Shanmuga Nadar, learned the trade in Calcutta and opened factories at home. Printing presses followed to make the labels, and with them Sivakasi grew into a centre for firecracker wrappers and calendars too. The small paper labels on its matchboxes were printed in a few bright flat colours with bold outlines, showing gods, animals, film stars and everyday scenes, and today they are collected by phillumenists, the collectors of match labels.

This whole film is one big matchbox label, with a red and blue printed border on cream paper and, at the bottom, a Diwali cards night: playing cards, chakli and namkeen, cutting chai and a diya. Lakshmi and your photo frame are slapped down like labels, the title is printed with its blue plate a little out of register, as cheap offset printing often was, and a struck match lights your details. The artwork is drawn in the Sivakasi matchbox-label style for this film; it is not a printed or reproduced label.

More video invites