Fashion: Jason Cheriyan ~ Textile craft

Jason Cheriyan: 'Design is dialogue'

(This article appeared in 2002)


IT'S THE invitation that gets me at first touch. Single threads of red and pink, violet and orange that meander across a black swatch as it flaps atop a card. It announces the collection by Jason Cheriyan to mark the third anniversary of the trendy Cinnamon Bangalore store. The tactile magic proves irresistible. It reminds me of the fine allure of chikankari when fashioned with imagination. Or the feel of Gujarati self-coloured applique, the edged surfaces that tantalise caressing fingertips. And so, though fashion is not my metier, I'm seduced by the call of texture, touch, and colour. I succumb.

 Jason's outfits offer texture imbued with subdued personality. Draped fabrics, whether patterned as skirts with long slits for sleek legs to flash through or kurtas with streamlined cuts suggest a second skin.
With each, it's the call of the skein that prevails. Whether seemingly random off-white strands that trellis a sleek white top. Or the gaze-stopping blues and purples that summon up an evening at midday, subtly marbled through with embroidery. Or the spontaneous pleat-effects on waistcoat-short kurtas.

What's distinctive about Jason's Workshop Line? "It is essentially the short kurta which is easy to slip into and out of, which is played with and cut in various proportions to lend itself in such a way that the wearer has a feeling of ease and luxury," expounds a backgrounder from Cinnamon's Radhika Poddar, referring to the racks laden with garments that range from cream-hued weaves to knobbly blacks, from luxurious cottons to purest silks in a non-traditional palette. Whether stoles or tailored garments, whether evening bags or saris, each has an invisible label attached - crafted with pride.

Can this be a designer to whom craft is a paradigm for fashion? In conversation with Jason, I find that's true to a deeper extent than I had imagined. "It's a very tactile profession, I'd say. You've got to touch and feel the fabric, work with people, weave it, embroider it, tailor it. There's never an end," explains gentle-eyed Jason, at his Workshop studio. "It's exciting because there's always something of the unknown. If you have a mindset where you've created the end, you probably won't enjoy fashion design."

Mulling over the element of the hand, I seek insights into his design overview. Jason, who also does the ready-to-wear Splash Line for the Lifestyle Store chain, offers: "I just do what I do. I hope it reflects what I am, maybe not consciously. Yes, I definitely do explore craft and the hand. Even a machine run by hand, as opposed to a power machine. That's probably the only common factor that I explore. Textures, they're important to me, as of now. But I'm not saying that's what I'll do all my life."

Jason, who did a course in textiles at the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Chennai before he signed up for an early batch at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), New Delhi, (where Ritu Beri, who's making waves in Paris, was a classmate), delineates an interconnection between his personality and his designs, "Basically, I like interacting with people and communicating. It's always nice to see people wearing your clothes. Our opportunities are very market-driven, but that doesn't mean ours has to be an industrial product."

What sets Jason's designs - which are available at Ogaan in New Delhi, little boutiques in Spain, the Livingstone Studio in London, besides Cinnamon - apart? It could be that he once worked with a Buddhist monk, a former designer, from a settlement outside Ooty to create a line that sold at Saks on New York's Fifth Avenue and Neiman-Marcus.

Or with another Japanese designer. Or that his label has morphed its away through Jason Cheriyan, and just Jason, to its present avatar as Workshop.

What are the intrinsic elements of a Jason Cheriyan design, which a viewer described as timeless, even verging on the classic? "Sometimes I feel design is dialogue. I seldom sketch. Most times, I talk design. Or it could be just a swatch," he replies with animation. "I think the biggest investment is people, ideas and your own motivation. Then, money. If it comes in that order, it'll work out."

Watching the transformed swathes of purple and pink sway past, the magical infusion of navy with black, the barely-there embroidery that catches one by surprise midway up a garment, or the incandescent, unpredictable turns of thread , it's easy to believe Jason. And even to subscribe to his future dream. "Asia, to me, is the most exciting continent. I think the new directions, the new trends, the new excitement is going to happen here," says Jason with fervour, then adds an individual take on the global village. "I've been working with Indian crafts. But I have a fantasy. In the future, maybe I can work with craftspeople in Africa or Latin America. I'm interested in craft, that's it."

But to return to the beginning. The brilliant invitation card, which one invitee wanted to frame, happened by accident, insists Jason. As his designs grow from swatch to rack, perhaps accidents will add to their unique texture.

It's an enticement that's hard to resist, when fashioned by Jason Cheriyan.

(The Hindu Metroplus Bangalore, 2002)

Textiles: Nishath Ahmed ~ Threads of urban identity

Nishath Ahmed in May 2012

 (This piece was written in 2003)

CAN AN urban environment be threaded through fabric experiments? Can flowing textures and tantalizing resist dyeing explorations be interpreted as city mappings? Can the eye and the hand coordinate to evoke beauty through the Japanese technique of Shibori, made tantalizingly pertinent to Bangalore's metaphors?

Positive answers to each question surface at textile designer Nishath Ahmed's first exhibition under the newly-launched Nish label, on view at Cinnamon on Walton Road from January 17 to February 2. The display, which includes saris, scarves, stoles, running lengths, cushions, and home accents in silks from Karnataka, flowing abuthai fabric from China, staple tussar and viscose, are exquisite in terms of colour variations, tonal impressions, and Shibori finesse.

Priced between Rs. 900 and 6000, these one-of-a-kind creations result from folding fabric in layers, stitched to seemingly random patterns, then dyeing the yardage in rich hues that shade and emerge in mysterious patterns. Much like the trails created by the unpredictable way in which a city pulses, breathes and redefines itself constantly?

These luminous textiles, many of which sold out even before the show formally opened, were nascent in Nishath's diploma project, when she graduated from the local Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in 2001. Titled "Urban Threads," Nishath set out to look at embroidery within the environment she was most familiar with and sensitive to, the city. Viewing the urban collage, she discerned within it movement, transition, structure, commotion, confusion, energy and chaos, complexity and uncertainty. Nishath opted to entwine these experiences into her embroidery through explorations of technique, not as mere embellishment.

The result is breathtaking. Emerald green and muted white play at hide and seek in patterns that wave and weave through the length of a viscose scarf. Ripples of orange surge and spread, then ebb tide-like, on the pallav and border of an areca-red silk sari. Panels of golden yellow and green, trellised with exquisite Shibori, bring alive the surface of a rich brown cushion cover. Delicate pink bylanes and pathways of white make inroads into a flowing length in magenta, while pathways of post-stitch perforations add an unusual dimension. Deep accents in turquoise and cerulean playfully crisscross a spread of silken fabric, ideal for a divan cover or a wall hanging.

"I wanted to create embroidery that is rooted in the urban context, very different from the traditional, rural context it has always been seen in," explains Nishath. "Or possibly to draw connections between the process and methods of the act of stitching, with the process of urban living."

In what way? "In a city, you can't see things in isolation; everything is interwoven," she says, conveying an inborn reticence over her achievements, and joy at the opportunity to share her textiles with appreciative people. "I did not want to look at embroidery that is independent of other textile techniques like batik, dyeing, printing... " Linking her experiments with Shibori, Nishath explains: "Shibori is a Japanese word for a variety of ways of embellishing textiles by shaping cloth and securing it before dyeing by folding, crumpling, stitching, pleating, plucking, and twisting. I found similarities in our resist-dyeing methods, which differ from Gujarati bandhej or Madurai chungadi."

 While the future beckons with infinite possibilities through Shibori and technical improvisations, Nishath's glance back is clear-eyed, "With the help of straight and curved lines, circles and landmarks, people give directions, without knowing that they are actually creating patterns. Perhaps, I tried to explore different effects that echo such a pattern by varying the thicknesses of yarn, with the help of my tailor Babu and Vijaya, who did handwork."

What innovations did Nishath try? Using bleach on the surface of stitches. Combining embroidery with batik. Layering pre-dye fabric with nuts and washers. Her excitement comes through as she shares the process, "There was a sense of excitement in this technique because the end wasn't known until the entire process was completed. When the fabric was folded, it formed layers and what you finally saw was one unit, under which these many layers were present, besides creating impressions of the stitches."

A surprise element was latent, as Nishath found, "Due to the thickness of the fabric, the dye penetration happened unevenly. The bottom and the top layers took in most dye, while the other layers got progressively fainter."

Inspired by Yoshiko Wada's two books on Shibori, Nishath plunged headlong and heart-deep into her experiments with stitches and dye-vats in 2001.

Unsure at first, tentative at each step, reeling from questions within, she was encouraged and steadied by her guide, National Institute of Design-trained textile designer Jayshree Poddar, who gave her both "confidence and the freedom to work on the open-ended project." Each time a bundle of stitched cloth was dyed at the Poddar's state-of-the-art Himatsingka Seide Mill, Nishath held her breath, wondering about the outcome. Would the unfolding textile match her visual dreams? To the eyes of urban buyers at Cinnamon, they proved more than a mirage.

But then, questioning as a way of life comes naturally to this 24-year-old, whose theme "African Tribes" won the third place at the NIFT Surface Design Competition in 2000. Did she spend her prize money on pizza or a new wardrobe? Unusually, she chose to use it to attend the Asia-Pacific seminar on embroidery at Hyderabad in January 2001, interfacing with a challenging crafts world.

The world could prove to be Nishath's dye vat in years to come.

The evidence? When she sent her original diploma project to Wada in California, her idol was impressed enough to consider including these tender experiments in her latest publication, Shibori Now, which unfortunately had just gone to press.

Between the stitches, couched by an open imagination, lie future aspects that Nishath could unravel. Will she?

(The Hindu Metroplus, 2003)

Textiles: Vimor saris ~ where classic is contemporary

Chimy Nanjappa at Vimor

(This article was written in 2003)


"LOOK AT this antique pooja sari," says Pavithra Muddaya, holding up a rich red silken length. "Unlike the popular ones today, its orange checks are ikkat or woven tie-and-dye, so are the white butas within each. Working with Tamil weavers over the past 28 years, we've taught them to create the butas with a single strand of silk, so that they don't have to combine local weaves with ikkat from a different region. The result is two silk versions and one in cotton that the market can afford, and that sustains the weaver community."

Pavithra should know, as she holds up a more contemporary avatar of the classic pooja sari, distinguished by its wavy white mailikanne or peacock's eyes border. She's grown up with natural fibre weaves ever since her mother Chimy Nanjappa set up Vimor (that's Indonesian for "pure") at their inconspicuous home in Bangalore’s Victoria Layout in 1974.

"I used to sell saris on my trips abroad. So, the idea came to me: if I can sell to a foreigner, I can sell here too," reflects Chimy, a former general manager at Bangalore's Mysore Arts and Crafts Emporium, often assigned overseas by the Handicrafts and Handlooms Export Corporation (HHEC). Initially, she travelled to small south Indian weavers, and coaxed the local Weaver's Service Centre (WSC) to replicate her exquisite collection of temple saris. In time, Vimor's clientele grew to include Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Begum Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, Pupul Jayakar, and Shabani Azmi.

But big name clientele means little to either Chimy or Pavithra. For Vimor's reputation has grown by word of mouth, instead of advertising. Why? Probably because the experience of shopping off a large bed, picking saris out of cupboards, makes you feel completely at home. It's comparable only to diving headfirst into your grandmother's sari cupboard, and emerging full of wonder over every singular weave.

For the timeless saris at Vimor, adapted to the skills and resources of today's weaving community, speak subtly of history and geography. Through the gandaberunda or double-headed eagle that was the Mysore royal insignia, or the mythical annapakshi that recalls Tamil lore. Through the procession of elephants on a pooja sari pallu that evokes a Mysore Dussehra or temple friezes at Belur, through untold stories of legendary weavers' guilds in mailikanne or mokalmoru weaves against shimmering grounds sumptuous as peacock feathers or dusky skies. Through a Manipuri pallu that turns up in a Karnataka sari, signaling peregrinations of style. Through an antique magenta sari enlivened with butas of bi-planes, vintage cars, and gramophones.

Vimor's success links intrinsically into a second generation of both buyers and weavers today. Buyers who know they will not find an eyesore among its woven treasures, priced between Rs. 350 and Rs. 14,000. And weavers from the Kancheepuram belt, from Raidurga in Karnataka who trust the outlet for, as Chimy says: "We're here to encourage the weavers, to help them come up in life."

How? Sharing her mother's stunning yellow-checked black cotton sari with red and ochre Ganga-Jamuna borders, Pavithra points out: "It's so easy to keep antique pieces in the cupboard, to bring them out to exclaim over every few days. But we have to give something back to society." So, she's shown the Raidurga weavers how to create a heavy cotton, minimal-care black sari with yellow woven borders and a contrasting pallu. An office-goer can afford it for everyday wear. And the weavers have learnt to innovate from its colour and design palette, instead of merely replicating an old sari.

Take the case of the original temple cotton sari, which has flooded the market in its Chettinadu avatar. Simplifying the concept of a checked or striped ground with contrasting big borders, Vimor taught weavers in Salem, Kancheepuram, and Andhra Pradesh to adapt the sari with a single shuttle, instead of three. This cut weaving costs, sustaining whole villages, and ensuring that the elegant sari survived. On a parallel track, weavers in Durgam and Arni learnt to weave lightweight silk saris on a single shuttle in stunning combinations such as rust shot with golden yellow and green, promising personality-plus at Rs. 1,500 to woman executives tired of look-alike power dressing.

Instead of monopolising traditional weaves or patenting their own innovations, Vimor has ensured that lakhs of weavers live with dignity. "I've tried to impart that multiples of one or two beautiful saris should sustain and feed their families," Pavithra stresses. "That sets the weaver free to experiment for the home market and for export. But most important, it builds up his self-confidence." For award-winning C. Shekhar, a towel weaver, she conceptualised a deep blue cotton sari with a silk pallu, interfaced with jute, banana or pineapple fibre interweaves from his export surplus stocks.

Pavithra, who trained at the local WSC while studying law, shares warm memories from Vimor's times past. Of taking their rich cottons to Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, the late doyenne of the post-independence Indian crafts renaissance, who lauded their documentation of kasuti stitches on a red cotton sari sampler. Of Jnanapith awardee U.R. Ananthamurthy's comment in the 2002 National Handloom Expo visitor's book, comparing their revival of weaving traditions to a resurgence of music. Of an Andhra weaver who waited hours for "Chimy amma" to bless his wedded daughter, despite a delayed train at Katpadi junction.

Together, they share the story of a Tamil weaving family ruined by an avaricious son. He collected orders that they were unable to execute, plunging them into insurmountable debt. The skilled father is currently a daily wage earner at his nephew's loom. "The weaver's pride is of paramount importance in our polycot age," says Pavithra earnestly. Weavers like Shekhar, Balasubramaniam, and Rajendran, whose lives they have touched, could not agree more.

What makes Vimor's buyers return time and again? "Good aesthetics and minimal costs appeal to common people and the sophisticate alike," notes Pavithra, as she folds a divine brinjal-hued Kancheepuram silk with golden checks, vivid against a deep green border with two streaks of patterned gold.

(The Hindu Metroplus, 2003)

Textiles: Neeru Kumar ~ creating a contemporary weft

IN Neeru Kumar's world, experimentation is integral to the warp of her life. As a Delhi-based textile designer deeply rooted in contemporising the craft tradition. As a 1980 National Institute of Design graduate, who's passionate about weaving. As a path breaker in showcasing Indian fabrics under her own label at 60 stores across 15 countries, including Selfridge's in London, Bloomingdale's in New York, and Le Bon Marche in Paris. Or as a consultant to the Indian Development Commissioner for Handlooms.

Reaching out beyond Delhi and Mumbai, she launched a Bangalore store on Vittal Mallya Road in January 2005. It offers cues to her core values. Through contrasting black geometric patterns woven into a textured tussar throw, the original Neeru imprint on the global textile retina. Through Banjara embroidered panels transformed into oblong silken cushions. Through fine khadi transmuted through shaded weaves into easy-maintenance office wear. Through jamdani and ikat weaves in an international palette that handlooms fresh directions. Most exquisitely, through old bandhej, Paithani or ikat heirlooms recreated as jewel-bright stoles revived through fine kantha quilting.

What intricacies shuttle through 48-year-old Neeru's creativity, against the backdrop of an international buzz about Indian textiles? Her commitment is to the sustained livelihood of practitioners, such as over 400 kantha embroiderers in rural Bengal, who add subtlety to her home range and garments. And over 700 weavers who contribute to her label.

Neeru recalls, holding up her tussar-based throw in Bangalore, "At the time when I created this in 1989, everybody wanted it. Its universal appeal fitted into American, British, European, even Japanese interiors. I got entry into the world's best stores. The First Design, as I called it, was the breakthrough in my life. It was copied in every corner of the country, though I did have it registered."


Other threads gradually interwove into the weft of her designs. Such as the jamdani weavers brought to her buzzing studio in Delhi. Her reinterpretation? Perhaps graded stripes on a green-grey silk-meshed sari melding into the pallav, with a burnt orange border. A European palette merging perfectly into an Indian textile. "This is a very contemporary colour," smiles Neeru, about her five-year-old jamdani project. "How an angrez would probably do it."

Of her engagement with weaving, Neeru reiterates, "To me, it's important to get what I want. To get the weavers to my studio, where the design and weaving are controlled. We can learn from them. Why don't some ideas work? But without a passion for textiles, all this would not be possible."

Neeru emphasises, "You cannot design textiles with the computer. You need to feel the material, to explore, be with the weaver. I'm a hands-on person. During your explorations, you might come across something stunning by accident. You have to be able to recognise its beauty."

Whether experimenting with Orissa ikats, Paithanis or Kutchi bandhini, tussar or khadi, she stresses, "Once you start learning about the material and its possibilities, you keep working on it all the time. You have to sustain the activity. And ensure the quality of both design and production."


Referring to post-independence Indian textile revival pioneers like Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya or Prabha Shah of Sohan, she explains, "To us, they were like goddesses. Now, though all the traditional weaves, styles and colour are there, we have to take them forward. Revive them, create new awareness, give them new energy to sustain our skills. Recently, when I travelled to Orissa, it was heartening to see the villagers still wearing their ikat saris."


Beyond her clientele, which includes Sonia Gandhi, Rekha, Shabana Azmi, and Arundhati Roy, Neeru's skeins engage with the grassroots. "I've been involved with educating the craftsperson, keeping their traditions alive. I love buying old textiles, which have no jaan in them, though not antiques. Because I had access to kantha workers, I thought that was one way to save my old textiles, while creating new ones," she narrates.

Extending the story, Neeru recalls, "Ten years ago, a man brought me some kantha pieces. I gave him a tussar sample to work on. Three months later, he brought back a synthetic version of the tussar silk. He'd done all that work on it! But when I explained, he returned with plain, beautiful quilting. And my first customer was (film director) Mira Nair."

What of her interface with Tokyo's Kaori and Chiaki Maki, the famed Weaving Sisters? "I met them in 1990 through my First Design," the soft-spoken artist-weaver says. "Chiaki saw it at an exhibition and came to me. She insists my Delhi studio is the best place in the world for any textile designer to work. We work with silk, linen, wool, the finest cottons. We do embroidery and stitching. Over five years, we explored so many weaves and materials together for a contemporary look, basically home furnishings and shawls."

In the public eye, Neeru's image is inextricably linked to khadi. "While working on tussar, I felt the need to do something that was basic, beautiful, textured. That's when a khadi fellow walked in. We made five sample bedcovers. They all went, even in the international market. Then, we began working on lightweight contemporary kurtas that had an attractive play of colour and were washing machine friendly. An Indian, French or Japanese person could wear it with equal ease."

Amidst a sunburst of oranges, crimsons, reds, pinks as wearable or usable textiles, Neeru concludes, "Till five years ago, there was so much happening. Now, suddenly I feel too little is being done to save our textile skills. We need to create and to market with new energy... If we don't, ikat weavers may be forced to till the land."