Decades in the fashion and textile industry have seen Ritu Kumar work tirelessly and passionately for a cause that attracts little sympathy.
In a recent statement, Kumar emphasised the fact that the vast resource of handmade textiles in India is “viewed more in the nature of sentimental fallouts of an era long gone”. “Sceptics,” she added, “feel that these should be used as inspiration and nothing more”.
This would, of course, mean that India’s fascinatingly rich heritage would go down the “inevitable path” of becoming museums exhibits. Fortunately, with new mega clusters in place and allocation of funds by the government, it looks like things could be taking a turn for the better.
Excerpts from an interview
What would say is one of the biggest problems plaguing the handicraft sector today?
I think basically the problem is that the sector requires a certain kind of design involvement by people who are in touch with what the market wants. I went for a five-day tour to Benaras and there seems to be a lot of confusion with the weavers trying to copy the Chinese, who are copying Benaras. That’s is not the way to go.
Secondly, they don’t have any samples of the excellence of the weaving that Benaras was known for.
What we get from them instead is an over designed product. In their effort of trying to look different, they give you pallus from Kanchipuram, jaals from Bhagalpur and so on. It becomes a potpourri of things with no one design.
The faceoff the matter is that you don’t see the curvilinear patterns on rich silks that Benaras was known for. There are also a lot of new chemical kind of metallic yarn of saris, which don’t look attractive at all.
Another problem is that the silk they are weaving has lost its drape. It’s become stiff and over starched.
The younger generation doesn’t want to wear it, the older generation also doesn’t want to wear it. The quality and texture has gone through a change for the worse.
What would be the solution?
All these problems are correctible but need a lot of design input, which I hope to provide, at least in a small way to begin with, with 30-40 looms now. We have put 20 into work already, and I’ll be going back to Benaras and putting another 20-odd looms in work.
As for the design input, the Weavers’ Service Centres are supposed to be doing this but are being run in a way that isn’t design-oriented anymore. They are being run as organisations instead and actually need heads who can provide that design input, like NID graduates and designers with a sound technical know-how.
So it’s a little design direction that the craftsmen and weavers need. Would you say that more designers should get involved then?
Ideally, a lot more people should engage themselves in this, since one person’s input is not going to be ever enough. But here we must take into account that these engagements have to be by people who understand weaving and designers who have a handle on the process that they are going to go and put their design into.
This can’t be done by everyone, so we then talk about NID graduates, graduates of Textile Technology, etc.
The fact is that weavers are the most qualified and skilled of all of us. When I go and give a design to weavers I need to hear from them where the problem is, since they know more than I do. All I can do is bring in a certain look and feel that I want. It has to be a collaborative process between the designer and the weaver. I don’t think any designer can do this on his own and the weavers would need direction.
Once the design is put into place, it’s the weaver who can best to translate it.You have been particularly involved with handloom industry.
I am particularly working on something that requires a lot of research and development, a high niche handloom and parloom industry put together.
I am not going into the mechanised sector at all, instead, I’m working with what I think is the USP of our country, the things made by hand. I think that textile always requires customisation, and if we work on that, and it goes into a space where designers use the cloth coming from there, then the market, both in India and abroad, will pick it up from there.
