In India, tradition is a replication of something from a different time. In France, tradition is something that existed at one time, which is the starting point and one has to re-interpret it all the time, Hemant Sagar tells Ramya Palisetty
Bold, eclectic and opinionated, Hemant Sagar of the French haute couture house lecoanet-Hemant loves new and interesting clothes. The designer would care less and wear a shirt as a pant by putting his legs through the sleeves of the shirt to make a statement. He is who he is and he never succumbs to traditions. With fear gripping his heart, he feels our generation will witness the downfall of fashion. The phenomena of fashion on the streets where everybody is wearing a red jacket wouldn’t be around for long. Though millions of things can be done to revive fashion but all of these efforts would require honesty and passion which is a non existent concept in the world today. He sternly believes that individuals are following a crowd that is going nowhere.
To encourage long term collaboration between France and India in the field of fashion innovation, a home grown fiber, Ramie has been developed in Meghalaya. After being industrially produced, the fabric was given to 17 designers who were handpicked from across the country. Hemant Sagar is the curator of this initiative in association with Bonjour India.
From fiber to fashion was a coincidence. The designer feels it happened at the right time. Said he, “I have a friend who has been doing a lot in Meghalaya. He has been investing in the region for a long time. He keeps insisting that we do something and one day, out of the blue, he got all excited because he had found this fiber. The centuries old plant has never been cultured properly in India. It grows wild in Meghalaya. The first crop went through the factories and I got hold of it. It is actually very rare that the first crop becomes a designer collection.”
As the chairperson of the project, Hemant was specific about the concept. In terms of creativity, there were no strings attached. The designers chosen are little rebels in their own way. Said he, “I had to carefully choose the designers who would work in this conjunction because the french were keen on innovation. These designers are sympathetic, doing different and personal things. The majority of them will be designing garments but some of them have gone for installations and concepts which are quite interesting.Three generations are working on this collection. The whole project has been transformed into a world of its own along with people who are making a Ramie inspired perfume to go with it.”
Fashion by definition is not traditional for Hemant and that’s why the question arises why should people be traditional in their designs. Said he, “It is a misunderstanding in India. They make fashion traditional because it caters to the wedding market. If only people spent less on weddings and did something meaningful like investing in girl’s education, would the perspectives change.”
The interest of Meghalaya to be associated with this project is to get into the global market. The fiber has natural properties, which can be used for hospital sheets because it is naturally sterile. Said the designer, “I just wanted to give ideas to the textile industry so others can use this collection as a reference. Though Ramie is very itchy but it has been made into a very nice and smooth weave. It falls in the same family as linen.”
The designer duo has been in the industry for 38 years and the journey has been a blessing.“Indian clothes manufacturing is either hyper industrial or a cottage industry. The latter will die. It cannot survive in an age where mass production is moving onto digital production. People still don’t know how the procedures are carried out by hand properly. I am not saying it to condemn anyone but on the contrary, teach the younger generation something which is valid instead of teaching them things that are outdated for the past 30 years.”
The designer believes in his soul that our generation will see the downfall of fashion. Said Hemant, “Fashion as far as I am concerned is already over. If you read people like lidewij Edelkoort, they will tell you that there is no more fashion. It is just an illusion that comes from illusionary catwalks that are just business projects. These people are all promoting their stakeholders and fashion weeks are money making machines in which B to B is made, to understand that there will actually be B to C but there ain’t no B to C. We might have 20-30 malls more today but it’s exactly the same thing which was there 30 years ago. Even today, the reference to go shopping is Khan Market. It was the same when I was born.”
On the subject of manufacturing, Hemant is of the opinion that humans will soon lose their jobs and machines will replace them “We will be over taking industrial production very soon which means the cost of production is more or less zero. Only the cost of the material will be implementable. Already we have a t-shirt machine brought out 4 months ago. It makes as many t-shirts as 17 people make in a month, in a single morning. Production cost will come down from `60 to `4. No human being is required to work on it. Now, his worth is in buying the t-shirt which he will not. So we are stuck behind evolution too far.”
Business in India doesn’t grow exponentially. It grows very slowly. One of the biggest problems fashion industry is facing today is from a skewed elitist perspective. “The Indian consumer assumes that exclusive means wedding. If you are not making wedding gowns, you are not exclusive. And Indian designers are eager to run after 500 clients who would spend a crore rather than running after `1,000 crore people who would spend a lakh. While billions of people are waiting for designer clothes, they are focussing on the 100,000 individuals.”
The common man is happy wearing the same thing year in and year out. People are not interested in creativity very much. Hemant exclaimed, “I find it sad that we keep the Indian fashion the way it is. It is interesting how the actual tradition in India was absent and then made a comeback. But its back and its not evolving at all.”
It is difficult to be ethical in the available price ranges. The designer often wonders how any of the others are able to stay ethical with the fluctuating markets. “Theoretically, if individuals are not accepting child labour and making everything in declared without paying in cash, then it is impossible to sell at the price at which everybody is selling.”
The younger generation is not venturing into the unorthodox arena but are sticking to conventional fashion. “We expect the young individuals coming in to have little rebellion or do something outrageous or new that will make their parents remember their growing up years. There is ‘my father will kill me’ aspect about things and if one doesn’t do exactly what tradition wants them to, they get into a two-face situation,” asserted he.
Individuals are more abiding today rather than being opinionated. They are demanding at a personal level. But the designer asserts that being demanding and having a big mouth with a loud voice is different from having an opinion because it can be spoken with politeness as well.
On the creative process of designing a garment, Hemant said, “We give development of a garment not more than eight hours of graving and another 50 hours for sewing and cutting the first piece.”
Workers in huge numbers are employed in the factory but there are not many weavers among them because weaving is not even taught in schools anymore. Hemant thinks that there are two types of weaves — normal weave and special weave which hasn’t evolved across the world in the last three decades. Said he, “3D printing of clothes is an upcoming arena. You can design shoes and accessories as well with 3D technology. So, from now on we will be designing atomic structures.”
For budding artists, he has a strong message to convey. “If you think that creating something from the past would bring you future glory, think twice.”
He concluded, “In India, tradition is a replication of something from a different time. In france, tradition is something that existed at one time, which is the starting point and you have to re-interpret it all the time.”