‘It’s time to dress Parisians in a lehenga’

The Grassroot Artisans Project campaign features a co-ord set in lightweight Kanjeevaram silk teamed with a kantha embroidered long jacket

In every brushstroke, there is a story.

Like layers of history, the fabled wax-resist dyed Indonesian batik tells stories of intricate blooms, mythical beasts and tropical foliage. They read as the fundamental building blocks of material culture. The craft said to have been invented in Java more than 1,000 years ago is a demanding one: designs are created carefully with canting (pronounced CHAN-ting), an etching tool that holds liquefied wax. The word batik is rare in that it is both a local term and also an expression of indigenous culture.

Jumping through geographical, cultural and craft hoops, batik travelled to West Bengal after Rabindranath Tagore's visit to Java in 1927. Renowned artist-architect Surendranath Kar and artist Pratima Devi are credited with simplifying the process by using brush (tuli) instead of canting in Shantiniketan - possibly why Shantiniketan batik came to be known as tuli batik. "Here, batik was embraced by the artists in Bolpur and they added their own nuance, flavour and cultural context," Monica Shah explains about the craft's cross-cultural, cross-time pollination.

Soof, also known as ‘Sodha Barat', finds its origins in the Sindhi community who in 1971 migrated from Pakistan to Palanpur in Gujarat. It's marked by mathematical precision and involves creating geometric motifs through small triangles. "Soofi hamari parampara hain [Soof is our culture]. At 10, I learned it from my mother, who learned it from her mother. Most of us have a high eye power as embroidering intricate patterns is stressful for the eyes," says Dayaben who with her husband Bhurabhai Dohat (right) has toured the world, sharing her four decade-long expertise with college students

Traditional craft versus contemporary culture, painstaking efforts to preserve age-old techniques versus the wild necessity of everyday functions: an old theme but an important one looms in Grassroot Artisans Project, a "passion" project by Shah and Karishma Swali of Jade, a bridal couture label.

The two launched Mumbai's Chanakya School of Craft, a non-profit endeavour that focuses on formalising the craft and providing women from low-income communities with high-quality education in hand embroidery. The goal is to enable them to maximise their creative potential and enhance their lives.

The other mission is to go where craft communities reside and have them modernise the skill-set for a global audience. "For example, we have previously used the leheriya and also worked with Gopalji, an award-winning Jaipur miniature artist, to make wearable art. Because this year marks Jade's 15th anniversary, we got a little ambitious and decided to take up six craft pockets," says Shah while offering mid-day a walk-through of the collection at their Peddar Road flagship store. Two years of on the ground research trips by their eight-member team was followed by design and fabric interventions at the brand's atelier for a year. This has culminated in their inaugural festive line of overlays, crop tops, dresses, jackets, tunics and trousers.

Nasrinbanu and Salehaben (on the right is fifth generation in her family to work with bandhani) from Bhuj create figurative designs by the tedious plucking and tying of cloth with the fingernails into miniscule bindings that reveal a pattern once dyed. "Bandhani comes from the word bandhan [bond]; that's why Gujarati families prefer the bandhani when the couple takes the pheras," says Monica Shah

The collection spotlights batik and kantha from Bolpur, West Bengal; bandhani from Bhuj in Gujarat; pattu from Barmer in Rajasthan; ikat from Pochampally in Telangana; Kanjeevaram from Salem in Tamil Nadu; Soof from Palanpur in Gujarat. The walk-through is part shop and part gallery, featuring videos of the artisans at work in their spaces playing on monitors raised on the whitewashed walls, discussing their process, following and breaking of rules and living in the comfort of tradition. Their voices often compete with the shifting sounds of birds and the hum of silence. Above all, it confirms that tradition moves in ways, both mysterious and not.

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Shah's interest in traditional crafts had propelled her to work with Rajasthan's batik artists specialising in hand-block prints. "[But] I was fascinated by hand-painted batik, and it took three years for Devesh Chafekar [project manager] to locate artisans in West Bengal," says Shah, throwing a proud smile at Chafekar.
In hand-painted batik, no two pieces are identical. There are no regular repeat of patterns, they repeat only as the mind and eye of the artist dictate. "If you see the batik work on this jacket," she says, steering our attention to a mannequin dressed in a long jacket and collared tunic painted in botanic motifs with the fine bristles of a brush, "it is high couture-worthy because of its customised placement."

Hand skills like weaving, dyeing and embroidery stand the danger of extinction as demand fades in a digital age. Unlike China, which quickly caught up with mechanised production, India continues to have the largest artisanal base. "It is our soul and culture. While there are ample examples of handmade techniques, these are usually historic rather than contemporary." Gopalakrishnan and Chithaiyan are proof. They hail from a long lineage of craft families from Salem, who have kept the legacy of Kanjeevaram silk sarees alive.

Devesh Chafekar, Kavita Saini, Smita Jain, Dhananjay Singh, Monica Shah, Krushika Thosani, Mansi Vora and Darshana Bhave worked on the artisans project

In Salem, language was a barrier. Smita Jain, who led the Kanjeevaram arm of the project, had to employ a translator. "We were able to impress upon the artisans why modernisation is a sustainable model, and also shift focus beyond sarees by working with lighter grammage of fabrics." Woven into Jade's festive collection are lightweight Kanjeevaram trousers, tunics and dresses featuring "dancing line" silk thread-work, all tailor-made at the brand's atelier. Challenging the supremacy of Benarasi brocades, Shah says, "We want to make a concerted effort to integrate Kanjeevarams and ikats into our everyday wardrobe. Wearing a Kanjeevaram kurta or trousers is more suited to our on-the-go lifestyle than say a saree, which is typically reserved for special occasions."

In September during Jade's store launch in New Delhi, someone asked Shah about the next steps. "I said, it is about time we dressed Parisians in a lehenga. We have all grown up wearing western silhouettes, and adapted them beautifully. Now we need to take our crafts and silhouettes to the world, and switch the narrative."