First published in Times Now
A runway inspired by Snakes & Ladders.
Shell jackets. Yeti ankle boots.
Crystal and gem-studded socks and speedy bags.
Vintage trunks and the return of Wes Anderson’s motifs from The Darjeeling Limited.
Pharrell Williams’s SS26 Louis Vuitton Collection brought India to the famously fashionable Paris. Complete with AR Rahman beats in the background; models walked his tunes as much as they walked the ramp.
I have liked the works of both Anderson and Williams (remember Despicable Me bangers?). They have been very open about India’s influence on their works, never downplaying it. The Louis Vuitton team also sifted through bylanes of Mumbai, Delhi and Jodhpur to understand the whats and hows for the collection before any of it made it to the Paris runway.
Recommended read: Most loved artworks of Raja Ravi Varma
Agreed, Mumbai has a style undercurrent that is hard not to wade in; Rajasthan is home to the royal aplomb that the Western world largely knows India for; Delhi simmers with its own fashion moments every now and then, often making waves.
It made for some great moments on the ramp; yet, it does not suffice.
What is intriguing is the fact that the Indian fashion industry, very rich in itself, is somehow content with basking in the afterglow of the LV collection reveal. How do they not realise that it will take more than outsiders’ gaze to reveal Indian diversity?
The sheer number of arts, motifs, symbolism, and lore that India has—a trip (or multiple) to India’s Golden Triangle, or bustling metropolises will not make the cut. Otherwise, we risk a gradual, unnoticed erasure of arts that could rule the fashion industry.
An erasure like India’s (now Bangladesh) once coveted Dhaka muslin—a fabric that is more than 200-year-old and has no weavers now.
It was exquisite, the muslin plant growing by a river in Bengal, endemic to the region. The fabric was in vogue once, and its patronage soared under the Mughal reign in India, before being showcased to the Western world by the East India Company. It was a runaway hit—a fabric so rare, airy and light—that it fetched around 30 times more than any fabric of any kind that we have today.
Endless production, overworked and underpaid labour, and only select demand back home made weavers forgo the craft. With the patronage from India’s rich gone, the fabric went into extinction. With weaning popularity back home, even its fame in the fashion circuit outside India could not save it. The only specimens of Dhaka muslin that exist now are in museums and exclusive private collections.
It was India’s legacy, fancied by the West, but uncared for back home.
Nobody fought for its sustenance, no GI tag to protect it. While that was another time, the story makes it pretty clear that heritage such as this needs connoisseurs at home more than in the outside world. Showstoppers and a few runway hits in the West or elsewhere cannot turn these stories into legends.
Another such form is Bihar’s chaapa work on cloth.
During my time in the state, a friend recommended that I visit Patna’s Sabzibagh as I searched for an art that never had its shot at fame. The place is a revelation for it is home to drapery stores—no fancy boutiques—selling attires worn by most Muslim brides in Bihar. The bridal dresses are imprinted with fine silver foil, hand-plastered by wooden blocks, known as chaapa.
A 19th-century art, it is now confined to slivers of some cities in Bihar. Surprisingly affordable, chaapa works never made it to any big stage, national or international.
Again, when we contemplate Indian motifs in the art world, striped animals do not even scratch the surface. I would restrict myself to natural motifs since William’s collection trained the spotlight on it as well.
Think of Gond art from Central India that is heavily influenced by nature—so rich and vibrant in its imagery that any runway, Paris or Milan or Mumbai, can have a gala anyday. And, if you do it right, it is sustainable as well.
While the word sustainable is now plastered over industries as different as hospitality, fashion and your local grocery store, Gond really is it. All colour pigments for Gond works are derived from natural elements including soil, plants, charcoal, tree barks and more. But of course, it is one of the many other Indian arts that the local artisans and select fashion designers are fighting hard to protect.
I can name more such textile arts of India, such as Jharkhand’s Khovar, Odisha’s Dhalapathar, Gujarat’s Tanchoi but the questions stay unchanged—how do we escape another story like that of Dhaka muslin?
We need untiring, dedicated efforts by industry bigwigs to dig deeper into the Indian art and fashion scene. To unravel indigenous art forms, go offbeat and explore textile traditions of places as different as Ladakh, the Northeast, Odisha, Assam, Jharkhand and more.
To celebrate India’s many themes, we need to look at arts and stories that might just be dying slow, uneventful deaths in cities and villages that are far away from the media glare.
These are forms that require patience and evidently, and very few have that in these times of fast and viral; I would have added ‘cheap’ to fast and viral if the LV collection was anywhere near cheap!
There is a lot more to India’s fashion aesthetic and arts than an ancient board game, striped-animal motifs, bejeweled fabrics and vintage trunks. So much more that Williams & Team can easily spend years here, decoding it all. Mr Anderson is welcome too.
I seldom write on fashion; I might as well not qualify to write on it for my wardrobe is neatly stackable into very clean or distinctively hippie cuts and solid colours, mostly veering off towards white, rust and blacks.
But when I write (or shop) about fashion, I wish for days of Dhaka muslin.
