HYDERABAD: Pleasant and well-dressed, Bina Rao is on the advisory committees of Government of India, Textiles Ministry. Bina is following in the footsteps of her father who was a Gandhian and is on a mission to revive khadi.
“My father was a Gandhian and I had a lot of exposure to Khadi and rural India in my childhood,” says the 56-year-old. While talking about business - whether it’s sourcing fabric or working with factories - she is so self-assured, grounded and also focused, it is clear that her flair for design is not limited to her prints.
“As an artist, I loved creating textures and colour combinations have always been my strength. In 1996, my husband Kesav Rao and I started Creative Bee, a hub of eco- friendly fashion and textiles today, but it took many years and single track work to stay within the parameters of natural and handmade,” she explains adding that for a long time they kept their business in the back seat to focus on alternative livelihood opportunities for highly skilled yet underprivileged weavers.
She is married to a Hyderabadi, Kesav Rao, a fellow design student at the National Institure of Design. Since texture and colour was their forte, together they started with a few looms on a small scale.
They later moved to Hyderabad and founded Creative Bee in the year 1996, which is all about creating new designs. The design studio, with an in-house facility for designing, production and marketing of hand-made and natural fabrics, makes a range of products in both fashion fabrics and home furnishings.
Bina’s expertise in fabric, coupled with Kesav Rao’s penchant for colours, worked the magic. Kesav focusses on techniques in designing, painting, print making, natural dyes and hand block printing. Talking about the intricacies of the designs and the way the process takes place, the she explains that the process of dyeing, printing, steaming and finishing is done by hand and no electricity is used.
“We use zero electricity in our entire process of weave, print, dye and finish. Most of our yarns are hand spun, our dyes do not pollute the environment and all the waste gets converted as rich manure for our farm. At the farm, dye bearing plants are grown and also a wide range of fruit trees produce amazingly sweet fruit, the farm is 100 per cent organic. Number of textile enthusiasts groups from different countries visit Creative Bee farm.” In this process Bina, has also been providing work to over 400 weavers.
Taking us through the details of her latest collection, Tree of Life, Bina says, “This theme is widely referred to and talked about in all the cultures -- the tree of knowledge, connecting to heaven and the underworld, and the tree of life, connecting all forms of creation. They are both forms of the world tree or cosmic tree, and are portrayed in various religions as the same tree.”
And the inspiration came from her travels abroad, that have been in turn inspired from the works of artisans from late 18th century and early 19th century which were exported to Europe and other Asian countries.
“Large wall hangings which were original “Tree of Life” themed ones were depicted in two distinctly different styles, from Coromandal coast. This was one source. And for a long time it was my ambition to work with our group of Kalahasti artisan of hand painted Kalamkari to create textiles similar to that of museum’s collections. With the help of printed catalogues available with museums abroad, after working with them for eight months, our team recreated 55 Tree of Life pieces,” elaborates Bina who is also invited to lecture on this subject at various museums and textile symposiums. And she stays inspired by looking around, from very ordinary objects.
Creative Bee’s design and production is based in Hyderabad with branches in Mumbai, Delhi and Surat. Most products are sourced from the Creative Bee Dye farm while a few are from Khadi cooperatives in Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh.