New and improved

India's heritage techniques have a new generation of champions redefining what 'handmade' will look like in the future. 

- VARUN RANA

IN THE VALLEY of Kullu in Himachal Pradesh, Saurabh Maurya of Margn is sitting with the 17 women artisans who will develop his label's next offering. He remembers his first time there creating knits for his 2019 graduation collection at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Bengaluru. Maurya reconnected with them in 2021 when he launched Margn, and today, the 27-year-old is able to bring them regular, recurring work.

He is one of many young designers under 30the 'Gen Z', if you're into such classifications who are breaking India's heritage textile crafts out of traditional moulds. Collaborating with craftspeople who've spent generations practising these skills, they're blowing apart old assumptions about what textiles and heritage crafts should look, feel, and operate like. And setting new templates for how we will wear them in the years to come.

For Somya Lochan, 26, this is the crux of her just-launched men's workwear label Quarter that celebrates the weaves of Madhya Pradesh, Bengal, Gujarat, and other textile centres. With artisans from Assam, she has successfully developed an extra-weft twill fabric in eri silk (so far, she says, this technique was seen solely in the Kani shawls of Kashmir). And this new fabric plays beautifully into her designs for the modern, officegoing man who likes to invest in what he wears.