They are young, yet promising and are all set to make their mark in the fashion world. Out of the few winners from the 150 graduating students of JD Annual Design Awards, three of them stood out for their Make in India initiatives.
These gen-next designers focused on narrating untold stories of Indian artisans, craftsmen and weavers. These young fashion students are giving us a glimpse into the world of seams and stitches.
Ouvre: Talking to us about their unique ideas and what makes them tick, Niwedita Burnwal, Vimhakhonuo Esther and Murali Krishna P (all in their 20s) who won an award for the Best Creative Concept for Ouvre state that their inspiration was the paper collage art of a talented artist Vithuse Temi from Nagaland. “The paper art signifies the day-to-day lifestyle of the Nagas. We used plain weave jute blended fabric which has a coarse texture and stuck to hues of maroon, beige and black,” shares Niwedita. Vimhakhonuo Esther adds, “Considering our art we have kept our garments very simple comprising of hour glass shape, straight lines and A-lines as our main focus was our art work. We have chosen an art (paper collage art), which was kind an experiment because we have never heard of using this as inspiration in the fashion design the way we have used. We have experimented paper collage on textiles. We want jute to be as popular as any other fabric. We have used Naga headgear as our theme. This is for independent women in the age group of 25 to 30.”
Sakan Ato: They bagged the award for the Most Contemporary Collection for working women. Designers Vaishaki US (26) and Sonia Bohra (25) have taken inspiration from abstract fish painting. “They are masterpieces of thoughts and execution in tune with the spirit of the times. Artist Archana Thimmaraju’s (who is associated with an NGO named Foundation for Art and Culture for Deaf which promotes the hidden talents of differently abled) abstract fish paintings portray varied emotions like happiness and anger etc,” says Vaishaki who is a CA and also loves to bake. Sonia, an engineer is passionate about technology and fabric painting adds, “We’re working full time and attend the course on the weekend. We made this award winning collection called Untold Stories as we believe we all have some story we never tell. SakanAto is a combination of two Japanese words Sakana and Ato which translates to fish and art respectively. We have used engineered fabrics to represent the patterns used by Archana in her paintings and a consistent happy fish print motif in our designs to symbolise the message the artist wants to convey through her work. We keep a tab on world trends via designers like Del Pozo, Port 1961, Miu miu and A Degree.”
