While heading towards Pandara Road market to satiate our hunger for some delectable Mughlai delights, we would often spot travellers standing under shade outside the Bikaner House waiting to board Volvo buses headed to the Pink City or some other towns in Rajasthan.
For many, the “princely house” was just another Government building until now, as it has been revamped and will soon be a sprawling regal hub for art and cultural activities. The grandeur of the space is what we witnessed during the announcement of the first edition of Rajasthan Heritage Week which has been launched by the Khadi Board and Government of Rajasthan in association with Prasad Bidapa Associates.
The three-day fashion extravaganza highlighting modern luxury and beauty of heritage textiles will be held from December 3 to 5 in the city of Jaipur. The list of designers who will be showcasing their creations include veterans like Ritu Kumar, Abraham and Thakore, Bangladeshi designer Bibi Russell, et al. The revival of the glorious and historical fabric — khadi is the endeavour of the initiative.
Organiser and chief creative director of the project, Prasad Bidapa told us, “The Rajasthan Heritage Week is a very important programme because in the middle of Resurgent Rajasthan, the Government is making a terrific initiative to ensure the weavers community, the dyers, the printers of the region, who also happen to number one of the largest working populations in the industry, are also brought up to par.”
He further called it a “mutual intervention programme” where the weavers intervene with the designers and the designers intervene with the weavers to create a new product.
“The designers have learnt a lot from the weavers and found the existing fabric to be absolutely stunning. So, they’ve started using the fabrics for their collections and at the same time, they are developing new designs in kota doria and khadi for themselves which also benefits the weavers. We are taking khadi as a luxury fabric and making designers out of the weavers who are fantastic themselves,” Bidapa, who is also a fashion stylist and choreographer, said.
“Rajasthan has created a benchmark in creating a fashion week like this for the simple reason that it has put its weavers on a platform with models showcasing their clothes and explaining the design philosophy and to me, they are as good as any other designers,” he stressed.
For the fashion week, there will be a total of 26 designers from Jaipur and eight of them are national award winning weavers, dyers, et al.
“I think the young Indians need to be educated about why the fabric is so unique. It is the fabric of freedom after all. To us, it represents something very spiritual. If we as Indians don’t celebrate this wonderful product, we really should be ashamed of ourselves. For people like me, we were very lucky as we were sensitised by Martand Singh, who is a great textile expert, et al. who taught us and promised that they would take handlooms as far as it could go,” Bidapa shared.
We were told that ace designer duo Abraham and Thakore have done a new collection by recycling old sarees which were layered on top of the other joined together with kantha and that was used as a fabric to create ensembles.
Bangladeshi designer Bibi Russell came in about a year ago and did the first pilot project with the weavers in Rajasthan. “We showed it two months ago in Rajasthan and that is what gave Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje the idea that we should expand it into a 26-designer event over three days,” he told us.
Internationally acclaimed designer Bibi Russell has worked with the artisans of Rajasthan before but this time, she was officially invited by the Rajasthan Government because her work “aims to maintain a sustainable income for the craftsmen,” which she shared after showcasing a vibrant collection during the launch.
David Abraham of the Abraham and Thakore brand gave an insight of their yet to be named collection.
“We are only using khadi and kota doria and also block printing. We are getting everything done using the specific crafts of that area. Rakesh (Thakore) is the guy on the ground mostly, he went to the block printers, weavers and shoe-makers. So we want to put together a total story which is a little more contemporary and not too craftsy,” he shared.
He calls the initiative “fantastic”. “I’m glad that it has begun to happen much more because people are really talking about craft and are wearing sarees again. We are also sitting on the largest and the oldest craft resource in the world which is also the most diverse, highly-skilled and has the most articulated design language. Anything made by hand is going to be the future. It is sustainable, it is livelihood sensitive and it is for the person who lives in a small village who does block printing and doesn't need to go work in some anonymous factory. It can only be done in India because nobody has this highly-developed skill base. It is terribly important that we keep it going,” he signed off.