BHUBANESWAR: Few years back, a peek into her mother’s saree collection that was a medley of patterns, colours and motifs, introduced Swikruti Pradhan to an age-old beautiful weave - a Patta Bapta. The saree was a wedding gift that her mother had received over three decades ago.
A student of fashion technology and management and a designer by choice, city-based Swikruti realised that the saree was unique for its design and weave. Her subsequent attempt to trace out the weave’s origin and its creators made her realise that Bapta weaving was already a dying tradition in the undivided Sambalpur.
Swikruti, who owns a design label Rustic Hue, started her journey to revive it in 2018. Through consistent efforts and design intervention over the last four years, the 31-year-old designer has now been able to put the Bapta saree back on Odisha’s handloom map. Recently, her Bapta revival project fetched her Best Design Awards 2022 in textile design at the Design India Show.
“The beautiful Patta Bapta saree is a unique combination of cotton and silk (mulberry) yarns with traditional temple borders (Phoda Kumbha) using 3-shuttle weaving and Sambalpuri Ikat aanchal. They are the easiest and super comfortable to wear for longer durations. But finding an authentic Patta Bapta saree is a rarity even today,” she says.
Patta Bapta and Tasar Bapta (combination of Tasar silk and cotton) are primarily woven in Bargarh and Barpali villages of western Odisha by Kosta and Bhulia groups of the famed Meher weaving community. While the Ikat part is done by the Bhulia Mehers, the weaving using 3-shuttle technique is done by the Kosta Mehers. Two weavers work simultaneously on a loom to weave one saree.
“When I started working on the revival project, there were only two weavers families in Western Odisha weaving Bapta sarees. I spent a lot of time not only on research to revive this age-old saree with contemporary designs in terms of motifs and textures, but also to persuade the talented weavers to work on it regularly to bring it back in demand,” said Swikruti, who pursued BTech in fashion technology from CET, Bhubaneswar and a degree in fashion management from NIFT.
Under her revival project, she also created a collection of Patta Bapta sarees that are mostly minimalistic and contemporary with unusual striking colour combinations compared to the traditional ones. They are neither too lustrous like silk nor too dull like cotton and have a subtle composition of shine and texture.
The sarees come with traditional temple borders (Phoda Kumbha), evolved version of ‘Rui Maach’ (fish motif) on the body and elaborate Sambalpuri Ikat anchal with multiple motifs such ‘Baandhi’, ‘Ghagra’, ‘ Baad Phool’, ‘Chot Phool’, ‘Lata’ etc. She also introduced patterns like thick and thin stripes, checks to contemporise the saree. Currently, she works with at least 15 weavers’ families of both the Kosta and Bhulia groups.Her Bapta revival project was also published by Springer Nature journal.
WHAT IS BAPTA?
A saree that is woven in both silk and cotton
Known for its unique texture and appearance
It was traditionally woven by Meher Bhulia and Kosta community
It is believed to be more than half a century old