Designer Rohit Bal’s collection Guldastah revives the lost beauty of weaves and crafts of Kashmir as the state’s rural women take centrestage. By Chahak Mittal
Everybody knows that ace designer Rohit Bal is a passionate Kashmiri, keeping the delicate art and craft of his roots alive through motifs, colours, cuts and fabrics. Now, he has gone a step ahead and engaged women from the downtown Dal area of Srinagar to put together a collection called Guldastah, which premiered at the Lakme Fashion Week earlier this year and is now on display at his store. Part of a project helmed by a sewing company, Bal is applying a salve on the women affected by the conflict and patching their torn lives together with a sense of purpose.
He spent long days and nights with a cluster of rural Kashmiri women, guiding them through their strengths of floral embroidery and teaching them to replicate them on exquisite organic fabrics like cotton, silk blends, chanderis, silk organzas and velvets. It was complete “love” for Kashmir that inspired Guldastah. He says, “I come from Kashmir. I realise very well about what is happening in the state. I wasn’t born in a war zone which it has now become. Do you know people are living such troubled times there? I want to tell people that its beauty will remain forever. Inshallah.”
Bal says that even though he was initially hesitant, the way the women artisans cooperated is worth commending. “In a way, I feel proud to have worked with these women who actually put the whole collection together. Even in the freezing winter of Kashmir, hats off to them for finishing it so perfectly,” says he.
Priya Somaiya, executive director at the Usha Silai, which is coordinating the project, says that after a few women showcased capabilities beyond just stitching and knitting, “we started their assessment, followed by training for learning higher level skills. It was then when many designers got prepared to work with these women and give them additional and more complex training.”
Since the garments had to be up to the demands of its respective designers, Somaiya tells us the criteria of choosing the women, “They could achieve higher levels of finishing and do quality work, understand the complexity of designs to work on them, understand different kinds of fabrics and work confidently.”
The biggest challenge, according to Bal, was whether they could show enough commitment and work against time targets. “These rural women do not have this concept since most of them are engaged with farm, dairy or house work. They are not aware of delivering something at a given time. They had to understand the production cycle. Also, learn about how little intricacies like embellishments, different kinds of trims, buttoning styles, cuts and so on matter. They had to learn to work in a more organised manner,” adds Bal.
In remote areas, even today there are orthodox families and restrictions on women that do not allow them to step out of their homes in search of work. It’s always the men who are “supposed” to do that. Hence, Somaiya explains that this was the biggest aspect that had to be worked upon — making their families convince for them to leave their homes for work. She informs, “The women had to manage their homefronts too, their husbands, children and mothers-in-law as well as get community support because they needed to be sure. They would ask a hundred questions — where is it that their daughters-in-law or wives are going? Who is the employer? Is it even safe? What would be the timings? What is the work about? Will there be men at the workplace? There is a lot of trust-building and community mobilisation which is required.” The team, hence, wandered across the villages in the state, convincing families and assessing skills.
Even then, there were problems — one of them being a terrorist attack at Bandipur, due to which the area became totally inaccessible for the team. The designer says, “I wondered if they would be able to finish by the show date considering the harsh winter, which disrupts normal activity in the Valley. I had too many questions. Will the work be up to the mark? Will the designs and pieces come out so perfectly as thought?”
The project, launched on November 15, ended exactly three days before the actual showcase on January 30. The artisans worked even in sub-zero temperatures. There was the Hurriyat strike, no electricity in the area and even diesel was frozen in the generators. The machines would be colder than ice and hence, hard to touch. “But amid all challenges, we managed to pull through and Rohit was very happy. He could not believe it. It was the resilience of those women that made it happen,” says Somaiya.
The women artisans, who also walked the ramp, earn up to `5,000 per garment as an additional income which allows them to help their families get access to better education, nutrition and medical aid.
Photo: Pankaj Kumar
