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Textile Trails: Museums for the Fabric Lover
A 200-year-old jacket that belonged to a Peshwa minister; a wall made of blocks used for printing; a village like space dedicated to India’s fabric traditions. These might seem like disjointed bits of information but look closer and you’ll find a thread that ties them. These are all pieces of the complicated Indian textile jigsaw. And…
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Textile Trails: Where The Loom Comes Alive
Did you, like us, not want National Handloom Day to end? Beautiful images of effortlessly draped handwoven sarees, weavers working their magic on the loom and cities steeped in textile traditions made us long for an earthy aesthetic. It also evoked in us severe wanderlust. After all, Chanderi, Maheshwari, Kota, Paithani – all get their…
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Colors of the Earth: The Allure of Natural Dyes
In 1856, a 14-year old William Henry Perkin invented aniline purple or Mauve, while trying to synthesize Quinine from chemicals derived from coal tar. His little accident created a whole new industry of chemical dyes and put natural dyeing, one of mankind’s great achievements, on the list of endangered arts. Indigo blue, Tyrean purple, Madder…
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Stitch by stitch
“I must share the story of Tabassum with you. She was one of the most highly-skilled artisans in Lucknow. She had won state-level awards. When we started training her as part of the first batch of the Sangraha project, she was very overwhelmed. She broke down and started crying. She said she wasn’t capable of…
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Beyond the Red Lehenga: The Indian Bridal Story
The bride in her bright red lehenga has become one of those images used on brochures that explain India in three minutes. Right up there with the Taj Mahal, a tribal woman from Rajasthan, the backwaters of Kerala and the Qutub Minar. Though the lehenga is quite the bridal symbol, India and its many states…
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Out of the Woodwork
In a world of steel, glass and chrome, where does wood, one of the earliest materials used in a home fit in? In nearly every corner! As accents like keepsake boxes, tissue boxes and tea-lights, as serveware like trays, platters and bowls or table ware with coasters and napkin holders. Once largely relegated to the…
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Wallflowers
Every society continuously draws from its own past to re-define its collective aesthetic and it is quite often visible in clothing fashions, decorations in the home and of course in the revival of ideas. In this spirit it is a great idea and one that is rapidly gaining ground, to use vintage lithographs, advertising collaterals…
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Design by Flowers
Roses, tulips, chrysanthemums and peonies; acanthus and Irises… the grammar of ornamentation on textiles, jewelry, furniture and architecture has always included flowers. Whether they were carved onto wood, sculpted in stone or block printed on fabric, the human world has had an unceasing fascination with floral motifs. Flowers were perhaps one of the first things…
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Punjab: an Amalgam
Famous for its scenic landscape, mustard blooms, ancient fertile lands, religious diversity and gregarious people, Punjab, despite it’s beautiful mountains and rivers was not always as blessed! Punjab has always been the center point of civilizations due to its strategic location as the entrance to the Indian subcontinent. Foreign invaders like the Persians, Greeks, Scythians and Kushanas came…
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Avacayam – From Temple Flowers to Colors
Holi, the festival synonymous with colors, surges the sales of ‘gulal’, balloons and pichkaris (water guns) being sold at the roadside stalls and markets. While the air is filled with mischief and people are drenching each other…have you ever wondered how these synthetic colors affect our environment? As the awareness grows, more and more people…
Storytellers of Wonder 