When feel scores over look
Fashion
By Anjana Sarin

STYLE gurus in India are fast shifting gears. Instead of working around the flare and fall of salwar-kameez, or the ornate embroidery decorating the normal saree and blouse, they are turning their attention to the fabric — the weft and warp that will make fashion news in the next season.

According to them, the ‘feel’ is in, rather than the ‘look’. "The accent is now on the texture and weave, instead of the cut and design of the apparel", observes Menaka Sharma, a design consultant with several fashion houses. "The fabric needs to give a second skin effect".

Attention has therefore shifted to traditional weavers, particularly those of the famous Banaras brocade, silk Jamavars and the Andhra and Bengal handlooms. The tendency is now to resurrect and innovate the old and label it as ‘exclusive’.

Designers David Abraham and Rakesh Thakore, who supply to 36 outlets in seven countries, have been developing the fabric for their creations for the past two years. In 1977, they used crinkled and quilted silk for their fall collection, following it with sandwashed tussar in 1998.

"We work with traditional weavers", informs David. "We do not change their technique, but update their vocabulary for international clients. The strength of the Indian fashion industry is that it can produce new weaves in small quantities".

Shreela Debi is another designer, totally focused on developing new fabric textures. It has taken her two years, through several experiments and failures, to develop a new fabric line of silk and khadi mix for her latest collection.

"I have mixed the thread of different tensions like cotton and monga to get this effect", she says, displaying a stretch of fabric with vibrant pinks blending into muted yellows and sewn together with self-designs.

Shreela’s weavers came to Phulia village in West Bengal as refugees from the Tangail district of Bangladesh. "They were traditional sari weavers", she explains. "I had to upgrade their skills so that they could supply for the contemporary work that I do".

Likewise, there’s Anju Modi who has learnt to talk to weavers through paper drawings. She sources her material from places as distanced as Kutch in Gujarat, Karrapur in Andhra Pradesh and Kota in Rajasthan.

Anju’s latest is a silk tissue net woven at Banaras to make sarees and material for lehngacholis. But she is best known for the brocade jacquard, a fabric that has a tradition of over 100 years. "Ihave just changed the weaving technique to get the effect I need", she explains.

Karrapur village turned out to be another discovery. "I found a special cotton jamdani weave which has become almost extinct, but for two families. After much persuasion I got them to weave for me. Their skill was dying as they had switched to coarse run-of-the-mill sarees".

The Karrapur sari takes about a year to weave and so it cannot be used as extensively as the silk tissue and brocade jacquards. Its texture, with motifs of animals blended into the weave, is ideal for making lehngas and sherwanis.

"Over the past five years, designers have gone back to traditional weavers in villages", says Ranna, another popular designer. "We need to revive and innovate, or else clothes would get so boring. After all, there’s nothing new emerging in terms of silhouettes and look".

She points out that those who cannot innovate, resort to borrowing from old books, museum pieces and private collections to create a contemporary look. "We have reached a stage where designing is not merely cutting and sewing by the yard, but creating different and new textures".

Inspired by the French painter Degas" Ballerina series, Ranna has developed silk tulle, decorated it with delicate floral satin applique, beads, pearls and silk threads in order to stitch skirts, halter blouses and tunics.

She has also created a Indo-Chine line of brocade, minus the dragon and Oriental symbols, to design shifts that can be worn over pants, net and brocade lehngas. Another old-world fabric credited to Ranna is the Parsi gazar, which Ranna uses to style kurtas and maharaja coats.

"Textures are back in an entirely different mood, the accent being on the clinging drape", observes Ritu Kumar, who was the first among designers to discard machine-made material, way back in the 1960s.

She started with hand-block prints, moved to embroidery and then to weave. Today, her handcrafted designs have got into the wardrobes of Sushmita Sen, Aishwarya Rai, Diana Hayden and other beauty queens. Even Princess Diana could not resist them. — MF