Gaurang Shah’s Chand Weaving Techniques For Lakme Fashion Week Winter 2021 Is A Fusion
Around 40 saris on wooden frames were displayed in three spacious rooms at textile designer Gaurang Shah’s signature store in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad. The exhibition-like display makes it easy to observe the fusion of weaving techniques. Gaurang held a preview for his Hyderabad customers last weekend, before showcasing his new collection Chand at the Lakme Fashion Week Winter 2021 in Mumbai on October 8. “Many people are not willing to travel because of the pandemic, but they wanted to see the collection. So we decided to do a thorough preview,” says Gaurang, adding that 10 sarees have already been booked by the buyers.
These 40 sarees were conceptualized three years ago and the craft groups that Gaurang had liaison with started working in advance, thus mitigating the impact of the pandemic and lockdown on this collection.
Chand sarees are diverse in their weaving – woven in Banaras, Kota, Srikakulam, Uppada, Venkatagiri, Kashmir and Paithan, the latter being embroidered. In some cases, a saree has been worked on by two or three groups. Imagine Jamdani highlighted on Srikakulam Khadi in one part of the saree and Paithani on the organza in the other. Motifs range from traditional birds and animals to trees of life and old flowers.
Gaurang says, “Over the years we have been mixing different weaves and this collection is an extension of that. This experiment has helped in interlocking threads without weft, to enable vibrant reproduction of colours. Gaurang’s weavers experimented on a loom without a weft for a collection of old saris that reproduced the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma.
Showcasing Khadi Jamdani sarees, which include a Radha Krishna motif, representative of the miniature style painting of Rajasthan, Gaurang explains that bright colors are possible when weaving without white weft thread.
Gaurang Shahi
The color palette for Chand ranges from all-time favorites such as rose gold and vermilion red to a combination of rose pink and yellow gold, brown and ivory white, mauve, pistachio green and dark grey.
A saree that combines kota and kanchi weaving techniques, bears floral motifs in English pastels. Some sarees incorporate traditional embroidery while others recreate patterns like embroidery with weaves. Think Kashmiri Paisley, French Knot and Parsi Ghara.
Some of the sarees were inspired by museum pieces. It took a craftsman three years to make a saree with Kutchi Suf embroidery on fine Venkatagiri cotton. “The fine threads on the saree are almost invisible to us, but a traditional Kutch craftsman counted and embroidered the threads. He worked without a design sheet; Design was all he had in mind. “
Another saree shows aari embroidery of Kutch on the Kanjeevaram saree. The flower motifs are embroidered with fine threads of six to eight colors and it took the craftsman two and a half years to make it. Another sari, inspired by a heritage textile at the Calico Museum in Ahmedabad, combines Paithani, Odisha Ikat and Uppada Jamdani techniques. It took the weavers four and a half years to complete it.
Do their clients appreciate all this labor? Gaurang points out that there is a niche clientele who patronize heritage-worthy saris. He points to two different saris, one pistachio green and one rose gold, and says they have been booked by a 60-year-old and a 23-year-old bride: “The takers are the ones who inspire me and In return for the weavers to continue working.”
Chand will be performing on Anup Jalota’s ghazals at LFW. Actress Taapsee Pannu will be the showstopper.
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