In an interview to indianexpress.com, fashion designer and textile revivalist Gaurang Shah takes us through his journey of pulling out fabrics and designs from the past, bringing it into the present and finding a way to sustain it in the future.
With a focus on reviving India’s near-forgotten textiles and a knack for putting interesting spins to traditional weaves, fashion designer and textile revivalist Gaurang Shah has been working relentlessly towards sewing new chapters of a forgotten story into his collections, one creation at a time.
In an interview to indianexpress.com, Shah takes us through his journey of pulling out fabrics and designs from the past, bringing it into the present and finding a way to sustain it in the future. Excerpts from the interview:
You have come up with a gorgeous collection of antique saris for the movie Mahanati after which there was a popular demand for these saris. What inspired the designs?
The costumes of Mahanati, a biopic on legendary actor Savitri, took 100 artisans, over a year and tremendous amount of research to make. I, along with my team, explored and recreated textiles to weave into Savitri’s journey of life right from her childhood to her last breath. For instance, we selected Mangalgiris and Kota with prints for her teenage days, fabrics like heavy brocades, silks, organza, handwoven satins, and chiffons to portray her golden era and a relatively subtle rendition of colours and textile for her later life.
To ensure perfection, we travelled to museums and recreated the textiles of that time. Not only that, we sourced heavy silk fabrics from different parts of India like Kanchipuram, Benares, Kota, Mangalgiri. I studied every detail of the textile — its design, texture, and colour — and guided the artisans to recreate it. It was a meticulous and enriching experience at the same time.
You are a textile revivalist. What are some unique weaves you have revived? Was it challenging to bring it back?
Our recent collection ANJALI paid tribute to weavers in Kanchi, Tamil Nadu. Two decades ago, weavers were festered with boring floral designs, colours, and yarns. So, I consciously brought back the Korvai weaving technique in pure zari, and introduced elaborate temple designs and traditional designs with borders as huge as 20 inches that gave a look of exuberance and broke the monotony in designs. In the process, ANJALI displayed the interrelationship of textiles, techniques, weavers, looms, and the weaving eco-system. It brought back near-forgotten motifs, the warmth of creating a fabric together and critical design aesthetics back among the weavers. I feel like it touched every part of the waving ecosystem — the textiles, weavers, looms and techniques — in some way or the other. The purpose was to encourage its social, cultural and economic fabric.
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Fresh appeal in Dhakai, Kota, Paithani, Kanchi, Benarasi, and a new hybrid genre with complex patterns and designs never attempted on the Jamdani loom are in the horizon.
