Bring out your crochet hooks for one of spring/summer 2020’s knottiest trends

Fashion's perennial love affair with nostalgia has found a new hook up, literally. Designers across the world are going loopy over crochet, and giving us a refresher course in the age-old knitting technique this summer. With slow fashion practitioners celebrating the luxury of the handmade, crafts like crochet are slowing emerging out of their folksy origins, credited to 19th-century Europe and Central Asian traditions.

Even as international labels like Kate Spade, Marni, Fendi and Missoni picked up crochet needles for a spring/summer 2020 with a decidedly vintage vibe, also letting their crafty side shine were Indian brands like Shriya Som, Kunal Anil Tanna, SWGT, Kaveri and Shades of India. From the latter’s all out crochet tribute, to Tanna’s adept addition to menswear and Som and Kaveri’s work with the women of West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, we look at how various designers gave a nod to nostalgia and explored this textile technique.

Shades Of India

With a collection that was quite simply called ‘Crafted in Crochet’, Mandeep Nagi’s spring/summer agenda was very clear—“a meeting of the old and new”. “Crochet has a sense of nostalgia, is recognisable and passed on from matriarch to child in many families. It reminds one of sitting in the sunlight and focusing on the stitch at hand, of telling tall tales to hold attention, and as an heirloom to hold dear for a lifetime,” says Nagi. The Shades of India line at Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) featured floaty and feminine silhouettes complemented with lace and hand-crafted crochet boleros, tiered dresses, blouses, totes, scarves and headbands. The 5,000 metres of crochet lace and nearly 50,000 crochet flowers—all embellished with zari threads and mukaish work—were created for the collection by 200 women from villages across Saharanpur district in Uttar Pradesh. “Crochet (has) so many different interpretations, and can only be produced by hand, making it unique to the maker, with no two piece alike,” says Nagi about the craft’s variety and versatility.

Shriya Som

For her summer/resort 2020 collection ‘Trouvaille’, Shriya Som collaborated with the craftswomen of West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, proficient in creating crochet doilies, table runners, covers and other homeware. With lace being a recurring inspiration for the Hyderabad-based designer, she naturally gravitated towards the delicate white doilies and used them in their existing oval-shaped form to create a statement dress and biker jacket. Som worked with the women to create more three-dimensional motifs, where smaller motifs were crocheted onto larger doilies to create a more textural effect, and raffia thread was used for highlighting. “I love that a weave that is so flat can have such a delicate and soft texture; and the feel of how the garment sits on the body. It’s our first time working with an Indian craft. Crochet turned out to be a good fit and inspiration for the brand,” says Som, who is also working on a capsule of pastel crochet outfits for the season.

Kunal Anil Tanna

A craft form that has a definite feminine bent with a propensity for lacy and floral delicacy, was transformed into a menswear medium by Kunal Anil Tanna. His collection ‘Elementary’ took inspiration from his own design journey and crochet, an essential part of his needlecraft course at NIFT, Mumbai, became a natural element. “It was intriguing as to how a basic yarn thread can create various textures with simple yet swift needle movements... A few stitches like chain stitch, single treble stitch, double treble stitch, etc. can be used in a variety of combinations to create endless fabric developments,” he says. Tanna’s mother and aunt, both crochet experts, came to his rescue and helped him incorporate the handicraft into his collection. To reinforce the delicate craft Tanna layered the crochet over a base fabric and quilted them together, using it as an intricate surface texturing method.        

SWGT

Shweta Gupta’s earliest associations with crochet date back to when she was 10 years old and learned the craft from her maternal grandmother. From making small bags to store her jewellery to today, associating with the women in Khatauli, Uttar Pradesh, who her Amma encouraged and trained, her relationship with the textile goes beyond seasonal trend stories. Her label SWGT has been using crochet in collections since its LFW debut in 2018, and for spring-summer 2020 it has been developed to mimic mini succulents and weeds found on mountain trails. “We have incorporated crochet as a staple garment construction technique rather than just decoration. It has been used to join patterns, mould the garments or give a high-end finish to the handwoven textiles we use,” says Gupta. With over 80 per cent of the current line using crochet in some form or the other, this practice is in keeping with the label’s ethos of employing more women and elevating their craft.

Kaveri      

For Kaveri Lalchand and her eponymous label, launched in 2011, crochet remains a long-term muse. From doing crochet as a child, to now working with a women’s collective from the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, this Chennai-based designer continues her love affair with the knit textile season after season. “It’s a simple craft that starts with a single thread and hook and can create multifarious things. You can actually construct a whole garment without a machine and have all the seams and pieces joined by crochet. It’s timeless, elegant, old-school and charming,” says Lalchand. Her summer line ‘I Listen to Colour’ showcased vibrant linen, organza and mulmul ensembles and accessories featuring crochet flowers and handmade crochet laces, all created by the Godavari women. “It is a community craft with women sitting together, talking as they crochet. And it can also be a singular, solitary and meditative exercise, where one can sit by oneself, knit away and reflect,” says the women empowerment champion.

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