As designer Madhu Jain completed three decades in the fashion industry this year, she chose to mark it with a 22-piece collection celebrating her “lifelong journey in Indian textiles”. The collection, which was showcased in the Capital in March, highlighted her enduring affair with ikat, kalamkari and Central Asian embroideries, although in a modern context.
Jain, who works with natural fibres and has widely experimented with textiles, has now launched a new fabric — the bamboo-silk ikat. Calling it eco-friendly and organic, Jain says, “In the plant kingdom, bamboo stands tall as being among the most eco-friendly. It absorbs 35 per cent more carbon dioxide than other trees, and is biodegradable. And because it doesn’t need fertilisers or pesticides to grow, the groundwater around bamboo groves is minus chemicals. In India, most of the bamboo is grown organically. I have used a proportion of 50 per cent bamboo yarn with silk for the bamboo-silk ikat.”
The fabric, which was launched in Delhi last week, took her “15 years of R&D to perfect”. Jain adds, “As a craft revivalist and textile conservationist, my effort is to keep alive a sector that is otherwise in danger of being extinguished by factory production. This textile took me years of research and on-the-ground work with master weavers. The yarn can be blended with other fibres for durability and strength. It took us 15 long years to produce not just the yarn but the textile.”
In 1996, Jain worked with an NGO in Bangladesh on the revival of nakshi kantha and is largely credited with the reintroduction of Dhaka muslin in India. She says, “In the mid-1990s, when I collaborated with BRAC Bangladesh, it cemented my resolve to ensure livelihoods for the artisans.” In the past, she has blended Andhra ikat with that from Odisha, and has also combined elements from Thailand and Gujarat’s patola to make a double ikat.
On the potential of the new fabric in India, and other bamboo-growing nations for that matter, Jain says, “Since India is the second largest bamboo-growing country in the world, we are well-positioned to grab ascendancy in bamboo yarn production. Right now, because I have crafted only a limited number of standalone pieces, prices are a little stiff. Until we go into mass production, pricing will continue to be on the higher side.”
The designer is happy with the increased focus on the revival of crafts in India. She says, “It is important to appreciate where we come from — our roots and traditions are intrinsic to who we are today. After the Industrial Revolution and the dawn of factory production, the Indian crafts industry took a backseat. Artisans gave up their family tradition and migrated in search of jobs. Slowly, we’re losing our traditional skills. Which is why there is the need for a strong craft revivalist movement in India.”
Jain has created a full-fledged collection out of the new fabric, perhaps aiming to make it a part of the contemporary fashion statement. The bamboo-silk ikat collection has 40 pieces of Indo-Western wear — tunics, shirts, achkans, trousers, balloon pants and pyjamas. She calls it a “tester” for future innovation. “The basic bamboo yarn is luminescent ivory. Much as I would have loved to do an entire collection in that hue, I had to add colour to suit every taste. We have dyed our textile to enhance the ikat design element,” she adds.
