Solapur to LA

An Instagram post by Nick Jonas managed to train the spotlight on a textile tradition dating back to 16th century CE India that’s unique for its middle-class connect, and raise the question: where does cultural appreciation stand within the wily celebrity marketing universe?

Govardhan Chatla woke up last week to a buzzing phone. The entrepreneur behind one of the oldest furnishing businesses in Solapur, Maharashtra, has somehow found a connection with a celebrity in LA. Actor Priyanka Chopra’s singer-husband Nick Jonas was photographed wearing a boxy shirt with camp collars (a shirting style reminiscent of the 1950s American leisurewear). Woven on a jacquard loom, its patterned knitted fabric features distinct and recognisable geometrical shapes and floral motifs, a hallmark of the Solapur chadar.

On the border close to the frayed selvedge of the half sleeves shirt was the name, Chatla. His family and friends notified him that an international celebrity was wearing a garment that seemed to be crafted from a Chatla-made Solapur chadar or blanket, ubiquitous with scores of middle class Indians looking for a warm cover on a nippy night. 

Govardhan Chatla

Unfortunately, none of Nick Jonas’s photos posted to promote the ongoing #rememberthistour series of summer concerts credits designers or brands, including the shirt in question that embodies a historical textile legacy. Curiously though, his earlier posts have made a mention of international ‘heritage’ brands like Dior and Fendi. 

mid-day had reached out to press representatives for Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas, but received no reply to our queries. Chatla, who we managed to track down, though was far more forthcoming about the humble chadar that retails at approximately R400 apiece, finding global fame. He told this writer over a phone call: “If it wasn’t for CHATLA [a registered trademark] mentioned on the sleeves, I wouldn’t have known that it’s one of my designs.” The unknown designer of the shirt thankfully chose to retain the prototype design, including the frayed selvedge with ‘SUR’ [shorthand for Solapur] written across 
the border.  

In a recent social post, global pop icon and Priyanka Chopra’s husband, Nick Jonas was photographed wearing a camp-style shirt designed entirely from from the GI registered Solapur chadar. Pic/Instagram

In a promising symbolic crafts story, Chatla’s ancestors were originally weavers from Telangana; the Southern state shares a border with Solapur district. Before India gained independence, Chatla’s ajoba (grandfather) relocated to Solapur in South Western Maharashtra. He was employed at a power loom mill but in 1965, he quit his job and switched to manufacturing and supplying Solapur chadars with his brother and son. That changed in 2001 when Govardhan took over the business, and launched a flagship store at the now famous Daji Peth address. “We produce and supply Solapur chadars to multiple retailers in India. This makes it difficult to identify when and where the blanket for this shirt may have been picked up,” he adds.

As it turns out, the Solapur chadar—also known as the jacquard chadar—is the first creation in Maharashtra to obtain Geographical Indication (GI) status. “Aside from the GI, tools such as trademark and design registration are available to creative practitioners to safeguard their original work; I am not convinced that in today’s world of the Internet and social media where images are freely shared across the globe, these tools can be as effective as they are meant to be,” believes 
Mayank Mansingh Kaul, writer and curator with a focus on contemporary histories of textiles and design.

Mayank Mansingh Kaul

Delhi-based Kaul can’t recall the first time he came across the Solapur chadar. Although it fits within his broader two decade-long understanding of handloom traditions from India, which have been known specifically for their home textiles. “Along with the khes and durries of Panipat, Madurkathi or Masland grass floor mats of Bengal and the Ikat durries of Warangal, the Solapur chadar is a distinct product associated with everyday middle-class aesthetics of the region it comes from.” Universally, the Marathi word chadar translates to bed sheet, but when woven in a thicker count of cotton, it also functions as a pillow cover, throw, blanket or rug. 

The time-honoured story of this handloom textile goes something like this: the development of the handloom weaving industry in Solapur, as cited on the Sahapedia website, began under the rule of the Peshwas. The settlement of Madhavrao Peth (presently Mangalwar Peth in Solapur) sometime in the last quarter of the 18th century CE proved to be an attraction to many trading and artisan families from the Nizam territory. These included families of caste weavers such as the Khetri and Momin.

Vaishali S’s runway collection in 2015 focused on the indigenous Khunn textile

The extension of the railway line to Solapur in 1860 accelerated the expansion of both industry and trade in handloom products to markets beyond the Deccan districts. Solapur Spinning and Weaving Mills, popularly known as Juni Girni, is the oldest mill there, established in December 1876. The central library at Pune University has an online report that states that Juni Girni’s superintendent along with staff member Allauddin masterji first produced the jacquard or Solapur chadar. 

Juni Girni shuttered in 1947. A year later, KG Kshirsagar, who worked with Alauddin masterji, branched into the production of chadars. Through exports, the Solapur chadar industry has contributed foreign exchange worth R1,592 million to India’s economy, according to the Solapur Textile Directory. “It is also important to note that Maharashtra was one of the first regions in India to industrialise cloth production, so mainstream handloom production like with this chadar, went into power loom and mill production early on,” says Kaul.

Vaishali S. Pic/Instagram

Solapur continued to thrive as a textile industry; it once enjoyed the status of being Asia’s largest spinning mills location. However, like with most textile traditions, the Solapur chadar’s position has changed dramatically because of heavy duplication, with cheaper products being sold using the Solapur logo. The original product is dying, Chatla rues. 

That Jonas is a known face in the international arena—31 million Instagram followers while this particular post was Like-d by four lakh users—this single image could have done it great service; had the designer come forward and discussed its significance in Indian textile history. 

What the post did manage to do is add to the conversation around selective craft altruism and cultural appreciation, and purposeless celebrity marketing. “The larger Indian textile narrative—whether it’s through publications, research, collections or exhibitions—tends to focus on trophy textiles made for the social, cultural and financial elite. So yes, more mainstream production centres creating handlooms like the Solapur chadar, on a relatively larger scale for the masses have been ignored,” Kaul admits.

Which brings us to the issue of why India attaches morals to handlooms, with some arguing that it might be playing a part in keeping a chunk of consumers away from traditional handmade products. Kaul thinks it has to do with India’s history of independence. Mahatma Gandhi’s call to buy Indian made clothes and khadi as a means to challenge the British power and their control over cotton production made the handloom narrative deeply linked with morality. “At the time when there was an urgent need to revive rural livelihoods, this morality took the form of the government’s patronage of the crafts. India’s cultural elite over decades took over these well-intended causes, acting as patrons of all things handmade. This early example of consumer activism within mainstream fashion as it were, is a unique phenomena of 20th and 21st century India. We were talking of sustainability, buying local and recycling before it made its way to the global network on fashion,” he says. 

Mumbai-based designer Vaishali Shadangule understands the significance of a GI textile with roots in India finding itself in the high fashion global space. Shadangule, who launched her eponymous label almost 20 years ago, has managed to change the sartorial narrative around the old-style Khunn (GI)—a hand-woven blouse material used by women in Maharashtra and Karnataka. Traditionally woven in 35-inch width to suit the blouse, Shadangule worked with weaver clusters to introduce bigger looms to achieve wider width. “Khunn is a lightweight intricate brocade weave not very different from the Banarasi, except it’s a lot less famous,” she says matter-of-factly about the textile whose origins date back to the 15th century CE. 

Born in a Marathi family, the designer says she grew up watching her mother and grandmother get dressed in jewel-toned Khunn blouses. “The weave is almost like a painting, instantly identified by its bright metallic sheen, holding within it patterns and motifs grounded in Badami Fort, the face of Goddesses, animals and flowers, and geometric shapes like the honeycomb.” 

In 2012, Shadangule set out on a road trip into Maharashtra’s countryside around Pune, Kolhapur and Solapur to hunt down the Khunn weaving cluster. She ended up in Guledgudda, Karnataka, where weavers were well versed in the handmade textile’s making but several of them had given it up or switched to power looms to meet cost and speed. With their help, Shadangule created three collections from Khunn and showcased them to an encouraging media coverage, but the reality outside the fashion playground was a different story. “I was shocked when I discovered in 2018 that the village [Guledgudda] had only 40 to 50 handlooms left. The weavers I had originally worked with had only one loom in their house while earlier they had six,” she adds. 

Since then, Shadangule has adopted the surviving 40 looms in the village with plans to use the fabric for home textiles, apart from giving the weavers a monthly stipend that translates to job security. “It works both ways,” she says of urban couture designers who choose to work with Indian crafts artisans. “But it also comes with its own set of rules. We have to commit to provide consistent business to them, while ensuring right credit, respect and wages.” 

In July, Shadangule was invited by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM) to showcase her brand’s couture collection called Shwas (Breath) at the prestigious event. She thinks, “Our heritage weaves are the original haute couture; they encapsulate everything from exclusivity to design, aesthetic and texture.”

Know your jacquard chadar

Classified on the basis of the weight of cotton

Deluxe 1,000 to 1,100 gm (falls under lighter weight category, known as Naurang, Deluxe, Dollar, Supreme and Supreme Deluxe)

Mayurpankh 1,100 to 1,400 gm (a heavyweight version, also called Monalisa, Mayur, Princess, Mohini

‘Chadar misappropriated without due authorisation could make it case of infringement’

A notable copyright lawyer decodes the jargon to reveal how and where GI registration can protect crafts artisans and handlooms manufacturers

Safir Anand, senior partner and head of trademarks - contractual & commercial IP at Anand and Anand

Mr Govardhan Chatla told mid-day that his chadar design has been tailored into a shirt, retaining the selvedge detail, as is. In this instance then, does Mr Chatla have any proprietary rights on the design that was paid for, and later, ‘manipulated’ into a shirt?
Geographical Indication (GI) protects communities that have perfected over time, the manufacture of arts, textiles and products imbibing unique attributes or characteristics owing to geographical origin. Hence, being a significant sector that helps the Indian economy flourish, the textile and handloom industry needs protection both in domestic as well as global markets. A GI protection is instrumental in this endeavour.

With regard to the Solapur chadar, it is a cotton bed sheet produced in Solapur city of Maharashtra and happens to be the first product in the state to obtain GI status, which is currently subsisting and renewed till 2024.

The fact that the GI protection in this case extends to the Solapur chadar as a whole and was misappropriated without any due authorisation in place, could make this a case of infringement regardless of the product being converted and tailored into a shirt. In fact, the selvedge itself comes under the ambit of protection since it is unique, forms part of the textile and the principles of distinctiveness will apply to a selvedge equally as required under the trademarks law. It is also possible for patterns and prints to be protected as trademarks or as design copyright. In each case, the novelty/ distinctiveness/ originality is important. 

The GI protection is not granted to a single entity or enterprise, but rather to any association of persons, producers, organisation or authority established representing the interests of the producers in a particular area. On the basis of the registration that has been sought, proprietary rights over the protected GI of the Solapur chadar is owned by Textile Development Foundation, and in fact, Mr Govardhan Chatla is the Treasurer of the organisation. The body can assert its rights since they have a registration in place for the chadar. And so, it will be interesting to see how the ownership is claimed in this case, if at all.

If I buy a piece of a registered GI-tag fabric and redo it into something else, does it automatically become my sole property? 
GI rights are non-transferable and do not confer any proprietary rights to a third party just by replication. The registered proprietor of a GI tag authorises the producer of goods to use the registered indication under appropriate conditions.

The registered proprietor of the Solapur Chadar of Maharashtra is the Textile Development Foundation, a leading association of textile manufacturers in Solapur that has been instrumental in getting GI registration for not only the Solapur Chadar but also Solapur Terry Towels.

Consequently, it becomes immaterial that the GI fabric was converted into a shirt, since the authorisation to use the protected GI in any manner itself is missing in this case and does amount to violation of protected rights. 
 
Many Indian textile experts believe that Geographical Indication was a concept introduced by the West to exploit and optimise production. In India, do you think that the whole business behind the GI tag is shrouded in ambiguity, and needs urgent reanalysis, especially now when everybody’s attention is squarely focused on “saving” Indian crafts?
GI tags help protect the unique characteristics of a product that are exclusive to its origin. A cutaway legislation that recognises intellectual property rights of a community instead of the individual producer is the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (“Act”). The Act recognises and protects India’s well-known, place specific and naturally originating products, such as Darjeeling tea, and thus acts as a tool for regional promotion and protection of Indian heritage.

Having said that, the actual gap that needs to be bridged is between providing the benefit of art and creation to the local craftsmen rather than the traders only, as is the current scenario.

The Indian Government has already initiated various action plans such like Digital India, coupled with the initiatives taken up by the Ministry of Textiles, to ensure that the benefit to artisans and indigenous local communities is channelled in the right direction. These actions plans are to empower the local craftsmen and provide them a global platform to market their products.

While this is a good step to ensure that the rights of the craftsmen are protected, the need to educate the community about their rights is important too. 

In the context of this particular episode, does it matter who designed the shirt, or if the design was made for mass consumption? If so, could you explain how?
Since the GI rights are non-transferable and cannot be assigned to any third party unless inherited or authorised, it indeed becomes pertinent to take into consideration the actual producer of the shirt. Furthermore, replication of a traditionally exclusive and protected textile design might not live up to the accepted quality standards and in turn, not only infringes the GI but also tarnishes the established reputation of a regionally originating product.
 
When does cultural appreciation turn into misappropriation?
Candidly speaking, while borrowing from cultures is definitely a part of the creative process, when any brand or designer is inspired by traditional Indian craftsmanship, the spirit of cultural appreciation must be championed. I strongly believe that consent, compensation and credit go a long way in cultural appreciation.
Understanding of any culture must always precede the commercial usage. This ensures accuracy in representing the specific culture and avoids hurting any cultural sentiments. Especially in cases of protected GI products coupled with the advent of the digital era, the rights of the registered proprietor must never be overlooked as it may land one in trouble for misrepresentation as well as misappropriation. Even otherwise, it might lead to bad publicity.

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