Blast from the past
Chethi Manjadi
Poornima Indrajith, Pranaah
Poornima Indrajith revisits her childhood in her 2019 Onam collection, ‘Chethi Manjadi’. Pairing the red and green of the chethi flower with cream and gold, she creates a look that is nostalgic and at the same time, contemporary.
Every year, the actor-designer tries to bring in an element of nativity in her Onam range. “Be it Aanachandam or Vaalkannadi, I wanted a leitmotif that would resonate with the Malayali,” she says. So the elephant and the traditional mirror with a handle made their way to designer saris.
This time around, she toyed with the vaazha (plantain tree), the chembarathi (hibiscus) and the thamara (lotus), all symbols that have a soul connect with the Malayali. However, it was the ubiquitous chethi that finally made it . “It is one of my favourite flowers, something that takes me back to my childhood almost instantly. I was inspired by it.”
While the team was working on the collection, she says bunches of chethi were strewn around, partly to draw inspiration from and partly to add to the mood.
The collection is a mix of big and small motifs. The chethi appears in single bunches as well as clusters. The surface embellishment is by actual manjadi and kunnikuru seeds, treated and processed. The seeds are part of the detailing... on tassles, on blouses and adorning hemlines.
From saris to dressy lehengas, anarkalis to cocktail dresses, the range includes something for all age groups. The Chethi Manjadi range is a bit more subtle, compared with her previous Onam collections. “The younger generation wants to wear handloom and they wear traditional clothes only during festive seasons, mainly Onam. So this gave me room to try with less gold and lesser bling so that these garments could be worn through the year,” she says.
Pranaah has a round-the-year exclusive handloom collection, a large part of which comprises traditional cream and gold and coloured karas with innovations. “We have mixed ikkat with cream and gold with Onathappan motifs. Work like that can take a weaver 12 hours. It is labour-intensive, but a tribute to the finest workmanship of our weavers.” The idea, Poornima says, is to experiment without diluting the essence. “For me, as a designer, my identity has to be in tune with the hand-woven, hand-loom tradition my State stands for.”
The collection was conceived of and done while Poornima was shooting for Rajeev Ravi’s upcoming film Thuramukham. “It was a little overwhelming, but as long as I enjoy every bit of what I am doing, it does not feel like I’m taking on too much.”
Through the modern filter
10 Days of Kasavu
Rouka by Sreejith Jeevan
This Onam, designer Sreejith Jeevan suggests wearing the kasavu sari (Kerala sari) differently, with a modern twist. There are two extremes when it comes to the Kerala sari says designer Sreejith. “Either the attitude is ‘it is sacred, don’t touch’ or the other extreme of doing whatever and everything on/with it. Also there are a few occasions that these are worn to — temple, Onam and wedding. With ‘10 Days of Kasavu’, 10 as a nod to the 10 days to Thiruvonam, the idea was to take the kasavu sari and look at it through a modern filter.”
The re-look meant making it wearable to contemporary events - a dinner outing or party at a beach, “a problem with the kasavu sari, the main problem in fact is that it is repetitive. When worn at an event, if there are 10 others in the same kind of sari, it doesn’t look very different.” He suggests 10 contemporary twists to the traditional —nautical stripes with kasavu, sari with a ruffled hem or pallu, ombre-dyed, embroidered signature Rouka motifs or text, or even a floral patchwork. The piece-de-resistance is the sari with the Mohiniyattam drape as the pleats (like in a dancer’s costume) and made out of more than one sari, which is turning out to be a hit to be among his clientèle.
Rather than have an Onam collection per se, this year he is working more with the sari and customising it. “It adds value, customers can pick the size of the border, whether they want text on it or how much colour or how traditional or modern! It makes it more personal.” Among the popular demands are - a colour change, in what turns the whole notion of the Kerala sari on its head, to black, ruffles (on border and/or pallu), kasavu on the pallu combined with placement embroidery are the among the popular customisations.
All the saris are from flood hit looms of Chendamangalam. and he offers two options - handloom and powerloom, the former since it is made by hand costs more than the machine made latter.
“Handloom Kerala saris with pure kasavu are, after all, the classic version.”
Of Tanirika, Bhamini and Ratnangi
Anka
Usha Devi Balakrishnan
Tanirika, Bhamini and Ratnangi...Anka has these three special collections for the season. Each of these has been created on traditional pit looms by master weavers of Balaramapuram. What marks these weaves as unique is that they can be worn both sides. The collections reinforce Anka’s goal of reviving and sustaining the weaver communities of the weaving hub of erstwhile Travancore.
“We have handlooms in silks, silk and cotton and handlooms for bridal wear. In cream and gold, pastels and rich colours, the collection is an eulogy to the weavers of these exquisite pieces that have been curated carefully. The prices start from ₹5,000 and goes up to ₹1.5 lakh. It is the wedding season and that is why we have a bridal collection that every woman would love to own,” says Usha.
Of each of the collections, she says, Tanirika, meant for the young and the young at heart, attempts to capture the sense of playfulness of spring in its colours and motifs. If Bhamini targets the woman of substance with its deep, rich colours, Ratnangi is for those who revel in the luxury of opulent handloom saris.
