In revival mode

Thewa is my middle name,” says Roopa Vohra, the Mumbai-based jewellery designer who resuscitated the dying Mughal craft in the 1990s. Thewa involves embossing intricately worked-out sheet gold on molten glass of varied hues. The result is a stunning play of sparkle and colour, with the gold and glass playing up each other’s strengths. Around 400 years ago, artisans would make an elaborate piece, such as a pillbox or a pankhi, every few years, present it to their royal patrons, and be rewarded with a bag full of gold guineas. They would repeat the process after their gold guineas were spent. Of course, the bigger the piece, the bigger the reward. 

So, how did Vohra get the artisans to design earrings and pendants that are such a rage today? “It wasn’t easy. I would place my order for jewellery, and they would come back with a set of pillboxes insisting this is what they could make,” she says. It was left to Vohra to take the boxes apart, improvise on them and sell them as pendants. Today, she has two flagship stores in Mumbai and holds trunk shows all over the world. 

Vohra is not alone in her dogged commitment towards Indian heritage art and craft. A bunch of individuals have taken it upon themselves to put the country back on the global luxury map. The route they are taking focuses on its heritage. These revivalists are bringing alive not only crafts patronised by royalty such as thewa and naqquashi, but also embroidery such as Fatilawala zardozi and badla, and textiles such as Kanjeevaram, muslins and brocade. They are also working with the Mashru fabric once worn by Muslim men in Kutch, and the humble jamdaani and tangail weaves of West Bengal. “Everything is a part of our heritage; it is a part of our identity,” says Sanjay Garg, founder, Raw Mango, which provides a contemporary look to Indian textiles, especially the ethereal Chanderi and rustic Mashru weaves.  

“I don’t want to romanticise my work by calling myself a revivalist; this is a part of my Indianness and also my bread and butter,” says Garg. He started with four looms in 2008 and, at present, operates 450 looms. Five of his signature saris have found a permanent place at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London. He retails from select stores such as Goodearth, Ensemble and 85 Landsdowne. 

The potential of the country’s heritage craft is not tapped by Indians alone. Chennai-based Frenchman Jean-Francois Lesage creates intricate hand-embroidered products for clients all over the world. Set up in 1993, his embroidery workshop, Vastrakala, employs 200 artisans who have made everything from shrugs, cushions and throws to the more well-known ‘bee cape’ in crimson red velvet for the Hyatt Regency hotel in Chennai and worked on 36 pairs of embroidered high heels with shoe-designer Christian Louboutin. 

Kolkata-based Shamlu Dudeja’s work involves kantha embroidery. “The kantha stitch was typically done on three layers of fabric, which was mostly used as mats for idols of Hindu gods, or to make quilts from old saris,” says Dudeja, who convinced women in rural West Bengal to use it on white silk saris and turned a poor man’s stitch into a fashion statement. Dudeja is also promoting kantha as an “art stitch” and it is being used in elaborate panels and tapestries. “The innate knowledge of colours, patterns and designs that women in rural Bengal have can’t be taught,” she says. 

Reviving ancient crafts does come with its set of challenges. Take badla work, for instance. Patronised by the nawabs of Lucknow, badla embroidery is a painstaking process that involves inserting flattened metal wires into the fabric. The wires are then beaten with a hammer into different shapes. “The art form gradually lost royal patronage and the artisans started to look at alternative career options,” says Niki Mahajan, who has been instrumental in reviving badla. When Mahajan started working with the artisans, there were less than 10 families doing badla embroidery, but today there are more than 70 families engaged in it. 

Designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee ensures that he does not dilute the heritage of the textiles and embroidery when he works with them. “I make sure I don’t put my designer ego into it. Rather, revive things the way they were at a point in time by creating a more purist ideology in my customer.” Mukherjee works with textiles such as khadi, Pochampally, Ajrak, Patan patolas and Kanjeevarams, and he doesn’t mind if his work is plagiarised. “Between me and the market that copies my work, we create a whole lot of employment for people at the craft level.”

Designer Ritu Kumar, who is credited with reviving art forms such as block printing and zardozi, says preserving and rejuvenating heritage crafts is a slow, arduous process. “There should be no dilution at all,” Kumar says. Of course, reviving old art forms comes with a lot of responsibility in terms of giving the artisans their due and staying true to the craft and its aesthetics. Kumar took it a step further and, in 2001, launched an international campaign to save the chiru, the endangered Tibetan antelope whose down is used to make the famous Shahtoosh shawl. 

It isn’t just the designers who have taken it upon themselves to revive heritage art. The Rehwa Society, formed in 1979 by the Holkars of Indore, has revitalised the weaving tradition of Maheshwar, which was patronised by Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar. “Handloom weaving in Maheshwar has an ancient history. Once royal patronage disappeared, weavers were unable to find new markets,” says Anita Kathpalia, CEO, Rehwa Society. 

The Rehwa Society has also expanded its range of products by introducing home linen to exquisitely woven saris, dupattas, scarves and shawls. The organisation sells through exhibitions in Indian cities. 

A thread that ties the revivalists together is their determination to go it alone. “I don’t want any government support or incentives to do what I am doing. I will make sure it becomes profitable,” says Garg of Raw Mango. He might be speaking for all of them.