Mumbai-based architect and designer Rushad Shroff, who was the associate designer India in fashion Discusses lighting challenges, documentation, and exhibit design. Edited excerpts:
Rushad Shroff
The exhibition is conceived as a curatorial chapter. Were there any sections that were technically difficult to execute given the interplay of the spaces versus the curatorial?
Actually, setting it up as chapters really helped us define each of the spaces and also allowed for a very strong design language that could be independent from chapter to chapter. So, in that sense, it aided the design process, especially creating a strong link between the chapters and the physical space.
For example, if you look at the Chintz segment, which was at number three, it took itself to a Mughal garden. The idea was to have an area where you plant trees and have the feeling of being near water when you walk in, the imagery of flowers bringing the garden to life. Or if you look at a segment like Hippie Trail, which was number nine, it represented a time when people were fed up with the turmoil and were coming to India for an alternative truth or reality. Which takes us to the flower power era, and people coming through Nepal and then Jaipur. We tried to capture it from the view of Jaipur Observatory and Jantar Mantar.
hippie trail
, Photo Credit: Mitsun Sony
Technically, I felt the YSL chapter was quite challenging. It was inspired by stepwells. We’ve presented it through these very thin wire mesh materials, which allow a certain translucency throughout. Each piece had to be joined together, and this was done by hand, which was labor intensive. The Great Exhibition was a more challenging chapter in terms of pure scale and composition, as it was to be a re-creation of the original Exhibition of 1851. It was a complete steel structure that we built and moved to the exhibition space. To make sure it is structurally stable and yet recreate that large volume was something that was challenging to put together but exciting.
Why is most of the exhibition in the dark?
It is not just the text that is in the dark, it is more about the larger space within which we are viewing the text, and reducing the need for sensitive lighting to preserve the displays themselves. Many of the garments on display are very old—some nearly 300 years old! The oldest we have is from 1750. Many of these cannot be displayed for large LUX levels [lighting level intensity], In fact, many museums have mandated a lux level of 30-50. We had to keep the light levels a little low to make sure they were all well protected.
Tea gown loaned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The exhibition is extraordinary in concept and scale of imagery. Have you considered leaving behind a legacy through documentation for design students?
The concept is larger than life, even for curators. While the exhibition and many of its details have been documented extensively in photos and videos, the main repository of information – the basis on which we conceived the exhibition – lies with the eponymous, lavishly illustrated coffee table book, India in Fashion: The Influence of Indian Attire and Textiles on the Fashionable Imagination, written by curator Hamish Bowles. This visually rich book contains a wealth of engaging and insightful scholarly notes by renowned curators, historians and journalists in the fields of fashion, textile and art history.
I think exhibitions like this, whether it’s fashion or anything else, are fundamental to any city or culture – for people to watch, broaden their horizons, and learn. And hopefully this is the first time for us to experience in Mumbai. If you look at it specifically, it’s quite interesting because there are a lot of people who came here and said, “Oh, we had no clue that India has been such a huge source of influence!” What happens is that people see India’s influence as just a back-end – of production, mostly embroidery. But it has become too much. And I think this exhibition helps to define the different sources of influence, whether it is textiles, craftsmanship, photographs, sari drapes, brocades, Zardoziand many other elements.
Saree’s journey in ‘India in Fashion’
, Photo Credit: Mitsun Sony
The design of some chapters (like YSL) takes away from the experience of seeing the costumes up close. Was it done intentionally?
I think there are different ways of looking at a particular outfit. Even with a painting, for example, you don’t always want to see everything up close, it’s these layers of information you want to see, and then some detail. You might want to see something really at eye level, like the chintz zone on display – you really want to see the details in the colors of those flowers. But sometimes, some pieces you want to have a silhouette look, such as a larger fabric, so you need to step back. You don’t want everything to be level, or static.
India’s influence in the channel’s work
, Photo Credit: Mitsun Sony
The layout was designed to offer that kind of viewing distance. And, of course, to create a certain sense of drama. Some garments allow you to be high enough to let your eye wander all over the place, so there is an element of movement. This way you see the architecture of the displays in a relatively rigid format rather than just one exhibition after the other – which also works in some cases, like what we’ve done in the channels section. Interest gets frustrated when there is variation in the form of performance.
The author is an independent curator and founder-director of Eka Archiving Services.