Chanderi Goes Haute

Chitra Balasubramaniam explores the ‘fit for summer’ fabric chanderi and gives an insightful narration on the fashion quotient of the fabric.

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Indian chanderi is the ideal fabric for summer. It has draped chic socialites, royalty and the masses alike. Chanderi, for most of us, has been a fine gossamer like fabric with excellent woven borders and fine work. An extension had been the ‘suit fabric’ and dupattas. However, the fine woven fabric has caught the fancy of designers who have gone to great extent to experiment with it. My first initiation into the fact that our humble handwoven sari fabric can be used to make haute couture had been at designer Ryoko Haraguchi, a Japanese designer whose brand Sind, is a confluence of Indo-Japanese technique. Her work uses traditional dyeing techniques of Japan which she is reviving. The Itajime or dyeing using board technique is one which she has worked with a lot. Her dyeing uses the Persimmon or Kakashibu in Japanese. The gradation dyeing done using these fruits is stunning to look at. What she had attractively done was to combine this with traditional Indian fabrics of kota doria and chanderi. Apart from this, she had dyed chanderi in nontraditional colours of deep orange and purple. The effect on the wraps was undoubtedly amazing. For the first time, I discovered a manner in which chanderi sari fabric could be used and the range of application it could be used for. The thought is mind boggling. What worked well was that the absorption capacity of the organic dyes on this handwoven fabric was amazing.

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