Designer Gautam Gupta talks about tradition and innovation in textiles with Asmita Sarkar
People no longer want a strictly traditional look. The modern woman balances one foot in modernity and one in tradition. While they want the sarees of their mothers and grandmothers preserved so that they are wearable, they also want it to be enhanced and made drape-friendly for a contemporary look.
Brand Asha Gautam’s, Gautam Gupta says, “We do bespoke, recycling and upcycling. People want the heirloom pieces preserved. Recycling is when you use a textile and make something out of it, upcycling is when you enhance it, by embellishing it more. Upcycling is one step ahead and it makes a paradigm shift when fabrics and embroideries are added,” he said. There have been times when the pieces were not in a great state but they used the parts that were fine to revive them. For instance, he said, zari exposed to natural air loses its sheen so a petrol wash is necessary to bring back the lustre.
They have also used multiple processes like merging yarns of different clusters to develop new textiles.
“We have Moonga yarn from Northeast with the Mulberry silk of India, created in Varanasi, to create a Moonga georgette fabric. For another one, we used zari and Mulberry silk yarn to create a fabric. We used weaving processes of decatising. Its a process of steaming the fabric to make it softer and later lustre is added by dry steaming and boiling it,” he said.
The reason for going across states to innovate is to create innovative collections and give people options. A theme-based collection makes sense only for the ramp or when showcasing in multi-designer outlets. For a single-designer store, there have to be options, he said.
In one of their collections, called Masterpiece, they have used Varanasi, Paithani and Bandhani with a twist.
Bandhani, a type of tie-dye textile, is done after the fabric is made in Varanasi and then the bandhan is done. In this, they have added zari, which is generally missing in the typical bandhani made in Bhuj.
“For the first time, a Patola art was used to make a Banarasi saree,” he said, talking about another innovation. The Patan Patola is identifiable by its double Ikkat pattern. They used the Patan patola pattern to make a banarasi instead. That particular saree was sent to Bhuj for the bandhan.
“These were few of the techniques and amalgamations at grassroot level to make the fabric look different,” he said.
They use these techniques with certain banarasi weaves and now added the bandhani too. Using edgy motifs like geometric, circular, ombre lines; jewelry and folk art. Typically, a banarasi has lots of florals, but they used Rajasthani folk art like pictures of a dancing woman with a man playing an instrument, a woman sitting and playing dholak to contemporise the look.
These exclusive pieces take time, no doubt, given the number of steps they have to go through right from graphing. One of the most time consuming, he said, is Paithani because they don’t work on jacquard weaving but handlooms, which are done by one-two people on a single level. It can take anything between two to eight months for a piece to be developed into a finished product.
They also make sure that the yarns are twisted higher as that makes a better flowy fabric, for instance georgette is a highly twisted fabric and chiffon more so. “So when you wear a chiffon, it falls well. We twisted the yarns well before weaving to make the saree and lehenga flow better,” he said.
The crux is to make the fabric more exclusive, wearable and contemporary because even if people have nostalgic value associated with pieces they want to look smart.