The 1,800 square foot house at Lavelle Road, housing textile designer Sanjay Garg’s label Raw Mango, mirrors his taste. “I am a simple man,” Sanjay says. “I like old-world charm in everything, be it in my designs or spaces that display my work. I cannot imagine my creations on mannequins. I’d rather have them in traditional cupboards. I want people to walk through red-oxide verandahs to experience my line. My designs adapt traditional techniques to fresh aesthetics.”
The Raw Mango founder and designer celebrated the 10th anniversary of his brand and has been at the forefront to revive handloom textiles.
Sanjay views fashion from the socio-economic lens. With a mission to preserve the livelihoods of skilled artisans, the brand currently employs over hundreds of skilled karigars. “Raw Mango is about more than fashion, it is about a larger programme to uplift an entire community by creating a new value for an existing product.”
Looking beyond urban India, Garg’s new line of thinking has brought in ideas about what fashion and design can and should mean. He works with Indian textiles and colours, instead of embellishments. “My work is infused with both simplicity and luxury. It is heartening to see people involved in preserving our textile heritage. I do hope however, it is not a short-lived trend.”
Talking of his entry into Bengaluru, after his flagship stores in Delhi and Mumbai, Sanjay says, “This city has a cosmopolitan taste in fashion. My first experimental store was in Bengaluru and it got a good response, so I decided to celebrate my first decade in the industry here.”
Raw Mango luxuriates in intense colours including rani (hot pink), gulabi (light pink), totaiyi (parrot green) and lime. “My idea was to have women relate to the sari. I bring in simplicity, with a dash of provocation in bold colours, images and display.”
Sanjay continues to engage himself in academics and actively participates with the design and craft community, apart from taking part in conferences at NIFT and the Ministry of Textiles shows. His pieces have been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
What inspired this man who was trained to be a chartered accountant? “I always ask myself, as a citizen, what is my contribution to society? After my training in Textile Designing, I focused on what and where I have to address, not just in developing the sense of colours and motifs, but bringing a bigger picturisation of the industry that could be made sustainable. To me design means a relationship between the weaver, the sari and society.”
Speaking of his aesthetics Sanjay says he started with no references of fashion imagery. “I studied Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings. I appreciated the way Indira Gandhi wore her sari, the little colour she wore was considered sophisticated. Gradually times changed, and colour was being accepted. I wanted to prove that lime green, considered not upmarket then, should be used to defy such preconceived notions. And into my sensibilities came bright colours that would wake women up.”
Sanjay’s handloom revival with Raw Mango and his other label, Sanjay Garg has seen a force comprising 1,500 weavers and other workers at 500 looms across India. His latest bridal line, Heer, is inspired by pre-Partition Punjab with knee-length kurtas, floor-grazing shararas and draped silk satin odhnis. The Cloud People line boasts with hand-crafted chikankari on Bengal mul, zardozi and handwoven brocade. “We have a new line of cholis to make it complete.”