It began with the sound of revolution. Delhi-based designer Gaurav Jai Gupta was on the prowl for his next spark of inspiration, when he stumbled upon Word Sound Power, an artist collective by musicians Chris McGuinness and Delhi Sultanate, who repurpose protest music from conflict zones across South Asia into contemporary electronica. Gaurav plugged into ‘Blood Earth’, the album born of the project’s journeys through Kucheipadar village in Kashipur, Orissa, sampling the folk songs that tribals used to defy corporate bauxite mining of their soils. In their desperate cries for autonomy, and charged calls for a united revolt, Gaurav found a story he wanted to tell through clothes.
“The more I heard their music, the more I wanted to know the history behind these folk songs, and the deeper I delved into research,” says Gaurav. The Autumn-Winter 2014 line from his label Akaaro, thus translates the visual cues of this terrain onto a wide variety of silhouettes inspired by Gaurav’s observances of the people of Kucheipadar. Titled V (Vendetta), and now showcased at the Amethyst Room in Chennai, the line features shift dresses, jackets, loose crop tops, three-fourth pants, over-sized shirts, sculpted drapes, knee-length skirts and capes that could be worn either as separates or layered into an ensemble. “We looked at the work-wear of the Dongria Kondh tribal community and modelled our cuts broadly along those shapes. Most of the men and women work at the mines there, so we have jumpsuits in this line inspired by that, several men’s shirts reworked for women, and lots of scarves, worn similar to the way the women drape sarees around their necks there.”
V takes forward Akaaro’s reputation in homespun fabrics that are either pure silk or cotton, or blends of the two with stainless steel. “There’s often a misconception that handlooms cannot be edgy, but Akaaro has always stood for a modern, contemporary, edgy, experimental interpretation of handloom, and this collection falls in line with that,” says Gaurav. The resultant coal blue colour of the stainless steel blend also fit perfectly in with his vision of V’s colour palette. While silver-sheer pieces add that shock of sudden shimmer to the collection, and symbolise the finished product steel, the line largely plays with mustard yellows, blood reds, oranges and brown reflecting its earthy, rooted spirit.
Alongside the conception of V, Gaurav happened to be building a collection of terracotta accessories, with chunky, statement, coiled or hung necklaces, which perfectly complemented the texture of the line.
Hence, on the ramp, the line was flaunted to the background of Blood Earth’s music, and paired with these terracotta pieces and aluminium shoes. On the surface, V features little embellishment, save for the V pattern of the Chevron weave itself, which Gaurav has frequented in the past.
While the weave lends its name to the collection’s title, V, Gaurav says, also stands for victory. “It is my political statement of revolt, too, against an unsympathetic government that doesn’t hear its people’s voices. What’s the point if fashion is merely pretty,” asks Gaurav, “it needs to do and mean far, far more.”
