CHENNAI: There’s a little bit of India in all my saris,” says New Delhi-based Rema Kumar. With 20 years of experience in designing, she is known for giving traditional Indian weaves a contemporary twist. From February 8, Chennai is all set to welcome Rema and her collection ‘Textile Tales’, featuring weaves like Ajrak, Batik, Kalamkari, Shibori, appliqué work and more, on saris from Uttarakhand, Bhagalpur, Kota, Banaras, Chanderi, and Maheshwari.
“Handblocks on a saree are basically my designs. And because geometry is my weakness, there are a lot of Mughal jaalis, circles, triangles, and lines in these prints,” she points out.
A fusion of different weaves, fabrics, and techniques, is Rema’s USP. “Each collection is unique. One can never predict how long it will take to make a particular kind of saree — especially because my ideas originate at one point, and lead me somewhere else,” she says, sharing an example about her unplanned working style. “Sometimes if I am not happy with a design, I send it to Aligarh for a Mokaish work, where the detailing is done with a metal thread.”
Her first collaboration was in 2001 with Mangalgiri and Maheshwari saris. Since then, her love for weaves has taken her places. She says, “Even if I am on a holiday, I keep looking for local arts and click pictures. Most of my travels end up as a collection.”
One of her most demanding collections was made in Uttarakhand, where they do twill weaves with silk or wool. “But I experimented with cotton. The initial batch of saris we wove was thick. So, we had to rework on it to make them light, and I called them the Uttara saris. People often mistake it for linen, and I explain that it is a shawl weave made with cotton saris,” she explains.
For the past 15 years, Rema has been working in Chattisgarh and has experimented with tussar. “I have mixed different yarns like wool, linen, cotton with tussar. And each time a different yarn is introduced in the inherent yarn, the end product tells a new story,” she says.
Based in New Delhi, she has collaborated with weavers she meets at exhibitions there and has had the advantage of choosing whom to work with. But are weavers always open to working with designers and their ideas? “Not all are but they’re weavers who don’t want any kind of interference. That’s probably because they are not exposed to urban designs and markets,” she avers.
Rema credits the Internet and social media for helping people know about the different kinds of weaves. “Kalamkari, Patola, Pochampalli, and Ikat have become common words at parties and gatherings. Some don’t know the difference between a weave and a print, but there’s the Internet for that,”
she laughs.
For the past year, Rema has been working in Odisha, Banaras, and Assam. “I’m working with the Karbi tribes of Assam, whose weavers are all women who weave only after finishing their chores. Assam also has a lot of festivals, so whatever they weave, they wear. As many weavers have taken to other jobs, many motifs and weaves have vanished too. But I am excited about the collection and hope to get substantial work done this year,” she smiles.