Textile Swatches

How it's made: Clamp Dye Resist fabric.

 

One of our new textiles, 'Colaba' from our soon to be released collection, 'Bombay Glitz' is handmade by a Clamp Dye Resist process, also called Itajime.

It basically involves making folds in the fabric and then using a carved wood shape as a resist. This wood resist needs to be placed on both sides of the folded cloth and then is held together tightly with a clamp.

Here are some images from our process-

Bringing in the muscle to tighten the clamps!

The clamped fabric is then soaked in water to make it more absorptive to the dyeing process.

It is then placed in the dye bath.

After it is removed from dyeing.

And the clamps are removed, but the fabric is still folded...

And voila! the finished product...

And here's a short video documentation. 

What do you think? Do you like the result?

Here's a great book, 'Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing' if you have an interest to explore this technique. It's written by my friend and mentor, Yoshiko Wada, and Mary Kellog Rice and Jane J. Barton.

A weekend of Color!

We celebrated Holi this weekend with my daughter and her friends. Holi is the Indian festival of color- a festival that celebrates the victory of good and evil and a celebration of spring and harvests to come. The ritual of Holi is throwing colored water and powders on friends and family. During this festival the country is painted in vibrant colors.  Here are some images from our celebration.

The colors we used were all natural 'Rang Dulaar" by eCoexist .

Here is some video of the fun that was had!

  

To continue the feeling of color and merriment today, we did a project on marbleizing paper. We used a mixture of cornstarch and water- about the consistency of thick buttermilk. We used tempera paints, added water to make them an inky consistency. We used a dropper to drop our diluted colors into the cornstarch solution. We started seeing the beautiful swirly patterns on the surface. We then gently placed our watercolor paper on the surface to 'catch the pattern'.

Here are some images from our explorations:

CHANEL Paris-Bombay Pre Fall 2012

'The mix of English chic with Indian influence is something very elegant', Karl Lagerfeld when explaining the idea behind his Paris-Bombay Metiers d'Art 2011/12 shown earlier this week at the Grand Palais in Paris.

The Metiers d'Art show is Chanel's annual show that is a tribute to the gifted craftspeople that produce the amazing workmanship apparent in Chanel products. In 1997 Chanel acquired 7 craft workshops or ateliers including- Maison Desrues (buttonmakers), Maison Lemarie (feathers and plumage), Lesage (embroidery), Massaro (couture shoemaker), MaisonMichel (hatmakers), Goossens (jewellers) and Guillet (floral presentations).

The collection exemplified the elegance and savoir faire of Parisian fashion and Chanel's ateliers combined with the rich, artisanal works of India. Combinations of classic Chanel tweed jackets with Nehru collars with raw silk tunics; metallic evening gowns cut to look like saris and Parisian tailoring all heavily decorated with intricate embroidery. The collection displayed true qualities of design and craftsmanship.

Here's a short video of the atelier of embroidery Lesage and button-maker Desrues working on the Paris-Bombay collection.

 

In India

The business is growing, we've had such a wonderful response to our textiles. I feel I need to spend more time expanding my production base. My favorite part of the process is working with the craftspeople and being inspired by the amazing creativity and magic in their hands...

So here I am- on a sabbatical in Bangalore... very exciting!!! It's been 10 years since I lived here. Since I had my weaving studio and was in daily contact with looms and weavers. 

There have been plenty of visits, but it's nice to have the feeling of 'being back home'. 

Check back in for images and visuals from our trip- what inspires us and new designs in process.

 

Knitting- spotted on the streets!

Enjoying a wonderful Spring weekend in Boston with my young daughter, we were walking around our neighborhood after getting some yummy yogurt at Pinkberry, when we spotted these...

 

We came across these wonderful, quirky, whimsical, humorous knitted animals and flowers decorating the street barricades. We don't know who created them, but they brought a smile to my daughter's face, sparked her imagination and gave her a sense of wonder. 

 

Pulp Fashion: The Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave

I'm so inspired by the show I saw last Saturday at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. My friend and mentor, Yoshiko Wada, took me to see the terrific and inspiring exhibit, 'Pulp Fashion: The Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave'

Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave is a painter by training, who for more than fifteen years, has created an astonishing and original body of work. After a visit to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the mid 90s, she was inspired to experiment with fashion design through the medium of paper. 

Painting and manipulating paper, she forms trompe l'oeil masterpieces of elaborate historical dresses. Her work spans 300 years of fashion history from Elizabeth I to Coco Chanel- encompassing the worlds of Mariano Fortuny and 19th c. Venice, the Medici costumes from the Renaissance, gowns worn by Elizabeth I and Marie-Antoinette to the creations of the grand couturiers Frederick Worth, Paul Poiret, Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, and even kaftans of ikat and suzani patterns.

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The exhibit will run till June 5th, 2011 at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco