It was a striking black Baluchori sari of her mother, well preserved all these years in her cupboard like a piece of heirloom, which inspired Sumona Parekh to revisit Bishnupur and weave a collection with an unmistakable imprint of the two centuries old weave at the Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai.
And the magic of the weave did miracle on outfits like salwar kameez, sari as the outfits were lapped up by fashionistas.
Hailing from Bengal, Sumona, who has a creative eye, grassroot connection and global vision, wanted to collaborate with indigenous artisans of her State and revive and resuscitate the dying looms which were once pride of Bengal.
Shedding light on the weave, Sumona says, “Baluchori is a weave done on silk, which is the Bengal silk. The weave is dependant on how the loom is made. It is all about the construction of the loom since every loom is different from the other. Fabric is the Bishnupur silk and the work on it is done by the loom is Baluchori. This kind of specialised work is being done in Bengal for the past 200 years. It is a dying art which I am trying to bring into the national mainstream and make city dwellers aware about the indigenous craftsmanship which still exists in technological age.”
On how she managed to put the spotlight on an ancient weave when her contemporaries were hogging the limelight for their avant garde style, Sumona says: “Appeal of outfits was enhanced by designing square-shaped motifs depicting scenes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharat. Scenes of women smoking hookahs, Nawabs taken away on horse carriages and European officers of the East India Company were also depicted on the saris. An important feature of the technique was the white outlining of the motifs.”
For Sumona, who experimented with the weave for the first time, the challenge was in placement of the motif. “Right motif at the right place so that it doesn’t look gaudy, over the top. I wanted motifs to be subtle and subdued.”
Explaining how she used the weave in her outfits, Sumona, who fell in love with the exquisite craftsmanship after she revisited Bishnupur says, “We took all the silk of the cloth, cut it into modern silhouette whether it was for jackets, skirts, palazzo and we have made them extremely modern.
To improve the look of the Baluchori, artwork and techniques like the Japanese kirigami, zardozi embroidery and aari grace work was done. “Though Baluchori is a weave on the loom we added bits and pieces of hand embroidery just to have a focal point and to make clothes apt for the festive season. We took pieces of silhouettes of long dresses so that the fall was beautiful. But it was not a complicated cut so that the work on the fabric is allowed to shine. We deliberately kept the costing and pricing low so that a working girl can buy them.”
