Hand woven and timeless Gaurang Shah for LFW X FDCI 2024 is back with an ode to spring with Gulal, with hand painted charkha woven khadi saris.
Asmita Aggarwal
Designer Gaurang Shah, won the National Film Award for Best Costume Designer in the Telugu film Mahanati, directed by Nag Ashwin, the film starring Keerthy Suresh is a biopic on legendary yesteryear actress Savitri. This isnt the only feat that Shah is overwhelmed by, as he believes his real achievement is when he started showcasing at LFW in 2012, he was the only one who came armed with hand woven saris.
In 2001, he recalls, handlooms were finished, their popularity was dimming, this was primarily due to the lack of design intervention, no direction given to weavers, they were unable to fill the gap between modern needs of a well-travelled woman and traditionality. The consumer and weaver needs to be aligned and this is where Gaurang jumped in. He worked on the yarn design, made sari sustainable, added innovative ideas and he explains, in India the sari is its innate identity.
The sari is a six-metre-long canvas for the weaver, if you look at his experiments with the Jamdani, every inch he elevated with fresh hues and discerning motifs. His belief in the Hindu calendar and how to dress according to seasons, is the reason his LFW X FDCI line is titled Gulal, paying tribute to Holi, the festival that ushers in Spring. In 2022, he had launched Sindoori for the festive season, and he confides it takes two years for the weaving process and thats why he took a break to be back this year.
Each state has been represented through pink in this collection, whether it is Kashmir to Andhra and Madhya Pradesh. We have added indigenous weaves, plus hand painting. But this creative process is time consuming —you begin with drawings on paper, then the yarn is dyed and put on looms, families then weave the entire day by hand, we dont use power looms. Sometimes it takes two years for just one sari, it is a slow process, explains Gaurang.
2024, the motifs are refined in Shahs collection, with a use of matka silks, hand charkha khadi, Jamdani, jacquards, to even gara, French Knots, chikankari and the exclusive petit point needlework done by the nuns in Kerala. We give older techniques a contemporary flavour and the challenge this year was to display shades of pink there is no other colour used, he explains.
Sari industry is more than Rs 288 billion in India, and it is still the most bought garment in the country till today, though Gaurang also has a range of Anarkalis, lehengas to ghagras and the beauty of his offerings is he uses only natural fibres used, the material only gets smoother and softer with each wash. We work with more than 2,000 plus looms all over the country, and thankfully over the years, we have built a reliable, sophisticated clientele, which values each weave and hopes to make it an heirloom, he confesses.
The sari is the Chanel of luxury, he laughs and says it truly transcends time, much like his Patan Patolas, which take almost two-three years to weave, an investment for a lifetime. We work only with real zari, which never goes out of style, woven for generations of weavers in Surat. It is not just looms, sari weaving is an emotion, they put their stories in the fabric. Unlike sequins and heavy embroidery which has a shelf life, our saris are timeless, says Gaurang as he explains each motif is region specific. The kanjeevarams have wall sculptures inspired by South Temples, but they have innovated by adding ornamental designs and sometimes floral jaals.