In one of the recent design conferences in
Chennai, the gentleman from Yanko Design asked, “tell me what is Indian design,
like you have Italian Design, German Design and others who have distinct terms
or adjectives associated”. I said to him, “now this is a big question or rather
intriguing thought!!”
While starting to write this article for
Paperworld 2013, Germany, of which this is an extract, it was Diwali time in
India, the festival of lights and New Year for the business community in India.
The flavour of ‘Indianess’ if I call it can be seen in traditionally made
products such as the accounts book for Diwali. It’s called Chopda Puja, a
practise of opening a new accounts book on this festival day and making the first
entry. The use of cloth on the cover is centuries old, typical to many ritual
texts and books. Like in any other
culture, textile the most visible and used product would I believe reveal the
attributes of design in its variety of forms and context. Design in the modern,
western world sense which started as a movement, ideologies such as
anti-machine vis-à-vis machine aesthetics that eventually unified at the Bauhaus
never happened in India in that sense. A few schools of design took birth in
early 60s which brought in this thought of which you find influences in a few products,
communication media, furniture, etc from the designers trained from these
schools. Today there are over 30 institutions teaching design and fashion styled
in the lines of western models, thanks to globalisation!
The Indian design idiom is being
deliberated upon by many academics and experimented by professional
practitioners. The industry is slowing imbibing the idea of visual
sophistication, thinking and style popular internationally into their products.
If you ask a middle aged man say working in
Govt. bank as to why he bought a kind of sofa set for his house, he would say,
‘it looks rich and grand, sturdy, and long lasting’. The typical Indian consumer though simple in taste is aspirational,
rooted in societal status. Historically products, spaces and architecture have
been hierarchical as per the status of individuals in the community. The
ornamentation and degree of its richness continues to be a strong attribute of
high aspirational value for a common consumer in India. Modern design therefore
would have a different interpretation in the Indian context.
Design in India maybe is embedded in its
culture. The traditional and contemporary coexist. The urban and rural landscape or people-scape
on one canvas would reveal abundant use of colour, patterns, motifs in the
cloths, homes, etc. The juxtaposition and use of these elements in my view is
mostly intuitive, celebrative and bold in nature. Here I would like to give an
example of the oldest garments, the sari for women and dhoti for men. If you
ask a young 35 year old why she bought a particular sari, in all probability
she would say, I don’t have this ‘design’. This maybe would lead us to our
search for design in India how textile in India which is abundant in use and
diverse in surface design could reveal the story.
The unstitched garment as Prof Kumar Vyas calls
it, a sari is made in a variety of patterns, motifs and weaves which greatly
signify design unique to India. When the young lady said design she meant: the border pattern, the colour scheme, the rich
and detailed surface work done on the pallu (the extending drape of elegance
and modesty), the texture, the material (silk or cotton or tusser, chiffon) and
the most important consideration, the region it comes from like Kacheepuram or
Banaras or Pochampalli added with the unique style of the weavers (many of them
have a GI). In contrast to this the
Dhoti for men is predominately white in colour with a red, green, blue or gold
zari border. This illustrates the meaning of design to majority of Indian
people, in a way! Design that is decorative in an aesthetic way, has value,
traditionally modern and has choice of colours, sober and vibrant and is
comfortable to wear.
Take a glimpse of any part of India and you
would see the traditional yet modern, classical yet contemporary, vernacular
yet International design alongside everywhere leaving the viewer dizzy and
overwhelmed.
Author: Ravishankar, Edit by: Pallavi
Thakur
