Asian Power Couples, Cover Style Story by Moritz Lindert
Neishaa & Pretam Gharat are listed among the Top 100 Asian Power Couples. They were featured on the cover of the magazine and here below Moritz Lindert uncovers their style story.
With many cover stories there is a secret hidden underneath the surface, but with this one, the truth is right there to see. It is written in the creases and drapes of the fabrics rather than the pages, and beholds the story of great tradition of Indian dress culture facing even greater modernisation. It’s the story of the New Pashas of Power and their new and exciting way to dress.
History of Tradition & Craftsmanship
The history of Indian dress is mostly a history of craftsmanship. From the nine yards of hand woven silk that go into a Sari to the intricate stitching on a Sherwani’s collar, from the precious Tikka headpieces gracing a Hindu bride’s hair down to the pointy, handmade Khussa shoes. The Indian craft in textiles and jewellery is constantly present and, unlike many other dressing and crafting cultures, has been able to preserve its traditions till today. Technologies may have altered and somewhat improved the process but those colourful dreams of silk and muslin that we so willingly connect with India still stand tall and true to their origins, crushing all waves of rolling fashions.
The New Pashas – Rewriting the Rules
However, that stronghold is about to face a soft revolution. It is the rise of a new era of the dress influenced by Indian craftsmanship, with pashas like Neishaa and Pretam Gharat leading the way. Fashion designer Neishaa, of House of Gharats sees an exciting opportunity, as western dress codes are beginning to embrace Indian craftsmanship. “We are proud of our traditions but want to also fashion it with the moving times”. With their reign comes a new freedom of play in Indian dressing. Traditional forms start to mix with modern fashion and trends, starting to evolve, as the world itself is becoming a hyper-connected village. Fashion capitals like London or New York don’t seem too far from secret temples of Indian textile craft, the remote weavers’ villages. Textiles and the shapes and cuts they take become a mirror of our vibrant times.
Uncovering the Style and Stories
This is a concept not even too far from some traditional cloths that can be seen in this very cover story. Neishaa herself is wearing a mauve brocade Sari, hand loomed in the great tradition of the Baluchari silks of West Bengal. Famous for their exquisite weave and intricate patterns, the Saris from Baluchar and Bishnupur have, more than any others, been a visual portrayal of Indian history. Their illustrative brocades show mythological motifs of goddesses, animals and humans in changing situations, accompanied by stylised birds and florals bordering them – woven poetry, where a new story unfolds in between each pleat. Whereas earliest Baluchari silks show the figures of Hindu gods and their assigned rituals of worship, they later transform into humans with religious references. During the 18th and 19th century, Saris from this specific West Bengal area even echo the beginning of the westernising of India. The Tapi Collection in Surat, Gujarat holds weaves that picture women smoking the hookah and European men in western attire riding the steam train. The textiles tell the stories of their changing times and ban them in shining threads of red and gold.
They are contemporary for that matter, just as Neishaa is when she wears her traditional Baluchari Sari with a pair of gold pants. To change the traditional Sari’s petticoat for a man’s trousers might have been shocking in older times, but this is the era of the new pashas of power and their uncompromising way to power-dress. This idea, that Paris designer like Thierry Mugler and Claude Montana have been playing around with on their catwalks since the 1980’s, is as current as ever. But instead of women in bright-coloured suits and bold shoulder pads power dressing now comes as a literal empowerment for both sexes to wear and like what they feel is right. The pants free the Sari of the woman and make for a modern look, just as the shimmering embroidery puts the man right in the picture.
Pretam Gharat opts for a vintage shawl, a drape originally purchased by his mother-in-law. But with the newly established empowerment of dress, no beaded piece of textiles could be more fitting for a new pasha of power. The delicate chiffon is embroidered by the traditional appliqué technique of Gota from the region of Rajasthan. Pieces of gold fabric are stitched by hand into dreamy floral shapes, each stitch put into place with metallic yarn of zari threads. This time-consuming technique makes the Gota drape textiles as rich and intricate to discover as it is light to wear – the zari threads standing out against the shiny silk of Pretam’s black Sherwani and telling tales of long gone Mughals and Maharajas. “Even today I find inspiration in my fashion muses from India, may it be the royals wearing their traditional Dhoti pants or the Mughals wearing their lavish jewels and pearls” describes Pretam, “those dashes of the East are still part of our daily wardrobe”. Says Pretam
The merging of times goes on as the jewellery and accessories come into full play. The new way of dressing is in the details. Emeralds, rubies, garnets and sapphires fall in line with thick strings of pearls while gold brocade and raw woven bast come to shape a modern handbag. This is what it is all about. Heavy embellishments mix with light and filigree pieces of silver and gold. The opulence and richness of traditional India meet with the clean and minimalistic forms of contemporary design. Indian dress culture is no longer just a place to stand in awe and tenderly look after its heritage, but a field of endless possibilities, where fashion also means fun. A mix ‘n’ match of the old and the new, of the long-time established and the merely invented.
Charlotte Barnes, who shot the cover is a very experienced editorial photographer but had never worked on a project of this kind before, she fondly recounts “The shoot itself was relaxed, informal and above all, a great deal of fun. Neishaa and Pretam were a joy and a delight to work with and the laughter we captured on set was quite real. I particularly loved watching how they interacted so naturally in front of the camera; despite the complicated and quite sumptuous clothes they had chosen, their attitude was utterly informal – and I think this came out in the final images.”
Power of New Ideas
This becomes most visible in the Project Renaissance, a fashion film and feature exhibition by Vogue India in 2012. Bandana Tewari, the magazine’s fashion features director initiated the project in which Vogue handed a variety of traditional Indian textiles such as Baluchari silk to the world’s major fashion houses to create a unique look. There it is again, the metaphor of global fashion, stepping down from the far away catwalks of New York and London to come visit these sacred places of true craftsmanship. Burberry, Fendi and Gucci, standing right there in the simple setting of an Indian weaver’s workshop, merging with his great craft and heritage into contemporary forms of style and provoking new ideas of what a fabric can become.
In the very end, isn’t that the true meaning of power? To be daring and different, to take on an unexpected path and lead it like a shining zari thread. And for that matter, to invent new ways of preserving and treasuring a sacred craft.
Photography : Charolette Barnes