Reinterpretation of Traditional Textile Art by Indian Designers

For Indian women, the garment is the most used and popular women’s wear and we can find it by different ways small and big ones, across all the country.

But the Indian fashion designer Rimzin Dadu to “reinvent” Indian textiles took almost two years to finish her silicone Jamdani saree. Jamdani, one of the finest muslin textiles comes from the Bengal region in India and Bangladesh. This textile is also using a labour-intensive handloom and can be decorated by grey and white motifs that are woven on the loom.

The Indian designer used silicone sheets because it’s a very delicate and elastic material to weave her Jamdani saree. This work that Rimzin Dadu has been doing is for an exhibition called “Fracture: Indian textiles, new conversations” held at Devi Art Foundation. This exhibition wants to reflect a definition of Indian craft for global and domestic audiences. 

Indian textiles are appreciated and well known for their craft all over the world. The purpose of this exhibition is to send a message that these textiles are beyond compare because of their incredible diversity in techniques and aesthetics. They recover the multiple genres of design, arts and manufacturing.

We all know that India has a magnificent heritage of textiles and craft. However, it’s the time to have some fresh and modern perspective of it. This exhibition is a perfect occasion to find out what more people can do with this Indian’s heritage. The main message is to tell everyone that India is not just a manufacturing hub but also creating their own innovations to compete with the world.

For the ones who lives on London, you will get a chance to see the exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, it will be called “Fabric of India”

Big names of Indian Fashion will also be part of it such as the Indian designers Rajesh Pratap Singh, Manish Arora, Aneeth Arora, Rahul Mishra and Kallol Data. It’s important to have these masters of Indian fashion participating at this exhibition because their work is also important to modernise and re-invent this textile's art history. It will open new ways of appreciating Indian textile history and heritage.

Of course, there are a lot of designers and artists that can help to reinvent Indian textiles but we have also the weavers from different places.

Thanks to this exhibition, people will see the skilled nature of all the work that artisans and weavers do in India.

Different Techniques Used to Create Unique Indian Textiles

Just found this infographic and think that it is really interesting! 

A brief explanation:

This infographic gives you an idea of all the different techniques, used to create Indian textiles employed for Indian fashion clothing, and the places they come from. It takes you through India to discover the indigenous Indian textile crafts and the specific region where they are employed. Did you know that these age-old crafts and their techniques continue to be used by fashion designers to create beautiful Indian fashion? Discover a lot more that will awe-inspire you by taking you on a journey across India and Indianfashion. Hop on board the Strand of Silk Journey Map at strandofsilk.com > strandofsilk.com/journey-map.

An artistic show for contemporary Indian textiles at Devi Art Foundation

For those who often attend of Indian Fashion weeks, you will probably be aware of the phrase "reviving ancient Indian textiles". Meanwhile, a Baluchari bustier or a Kimkhab sari dress being showcased on the runway may seem a slightly futuristic and non-traditional in comparison. Nowadays, we are now seeing ancient crafts being fused into the contemporary 21st century through radial and unique ideas.

Mayank Mansingh Kaul, Sanjay Garg and Rahul Jain have recently organised talks at Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon about Fracture – Indian textiles,  showing a wide range of hand-made Indian textiles that have been introduced in a modern context.

The Devi Art Foundation showcased a variety of items such as a series of Indian clothes and silk thread cloths presented as a futuristic sculpture in 3D. All of these works have been part of a project that gathers together a plethora of hand made Indian textiles from across India.

“Though, in India, textiles are such a visible concept, there are no museum quality masterpieces” said Mayank Kaul, all these textiles were ordered between 2000 and 2014. “We wanted to discuss and deliberate what contemporary means in textiles today and what it means to break away from tradition” he completes. 

Here is a variety of creations that are exhibited in the show:

Fashion designer Rimzim Dadu, chose to use another original material such as silicon rubber sheets shredded to thin yarn which he displayed as a given the length of a sari. This textile piece showcases a stunning pattern that looks like the Jamdani weave. The material is graceful and light as a feather, and the stretched yarn brings an undulating pattern.

To represent earthly silhouettes, Shaikh Mohammad Hussain used block print on cotton to illustrate nine concentric spheres. We can see the work of two different views, nearly every sphere differs in pattern. When observed from a distance, it just looks like a repetition of sphere, all thisis  to remember the diversity of these textiles and patterns.

Astha Butail created 'Yoking of the Felicity', this installation takes inspiration from the Rigveda, where cloth has great importance. The artist constructed the piece in a contemporary way, by changing a simple product into a three-dimensional format, crafted from the loom itself.