A design studio sews up a stitch library

Morii Design not only documents rural India's embroidery techniques but also creates new ones to empower artisans

- Radhika Iyengar

Under the shade of a tree, a group of Kachhi Rabari women are huddled together. With their black lehngas tucked between their legs and their veils draped across their foreheads, their eyes follow the slender needles darting between their fingers. The women giggle and trade stories with each other, as they embroider the fabrics with their generational knowledge of Rabari bharath (or embroidery).

Leading them is Brinda Dudhat, a product of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, who in 2019 co-founded Morii Design, a Gandhinagar-based textile design studio that crafts riveting textile tapestries using the erudite wisdom of over 180 artisans across 12 villages in India. The studio reimagines folk patchwork and motifs, embroidery techniques and block printing with modern flair.

With the onset of machines that could master and replicate even the most complex handmade techniques, regional and rural thread-works unknowingly began to recede into oblivion.

Dudhat noticed the change at the source: the women in pastoral and seminomadic communities, who once took hours embroidering their trousseaus for personal pleasure, were now assembling their clothing using machine-aided decorations. "It was really surprising," says Dudhat, 30. "There are some very complex stitches in Rabari embroidery alone. Now, however, there are machine-made ribbons available that replicate those stitches. So, the women stack these ribbons on to their dresses and just stitch them. Instead of traditional mirror embroidery, they use reflective acrylic or plastic discs. So, their wedding attires, which were once entirely hand-embroidered by them, now feature machine-made imitations," where only the smaller areas are filled in by their own creativity. Dudhat wanted to breathe new life into these folk textile crafts—rekindling both pride and interest among the artisans, while monetarily empowering them as well.