Moon sari
Sari
2012 (made)
2012 (made)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
This sari is the result of a collaboration between Aziz Khatri and the fashion designers Mriga Kapadiya and Amrit Kaur of NorBlack NorWhite. Aziz Khatri is an artisan-designer based in Bhadli in the Kutch region of Gujarat. He is a specialist in tie-dyeing and trained at the Kala Raksha Vidhalaya, a school of design for artisans. Mriga Kapadiya and Amrit Kaur moved to Mumbai from Toronto in 2009 and set up their company in order to explore traditional textile designs and re-interpret them for contemporary lifestyles.
The initial design of the sari was an experiment by Aziz which was inspired by the Pepsi logo consisting of a globe with blue, white and red stripes inside it. The technique involved painting a piece of fabric with swirls of colour, then folding and compressing the fabric between two circular wooden discs which are clamped together and put into an indigo dye bath. When opened the fabric that that is not accessed by the indigo dye shows the original painted base colours. The overall visual effect was of a blue ground with a pattern of equal sized circles with smudges of red and blue inside them.
Aziz showed this to Mriga and Amrit who then played around with the concept using the globe motif but with different colours inside. They created two scarves; the Day scarf, in which the base colours are shades of yellow and orange, and the Night scarf, in which the base colours are shades of grey. The random nature of the base colours gives the effect of the uneven surface of the sun and moon, while the clamp dying process leaves a white halo around the discs which adds to the planetary effect.
Aziz continued to experiment and created the Moon sari. He uses the colour range of the Night scarf, but goes a step further in using different size wooden discs in the clamping process. One end of the sari starts with a smaller size disc which expands to a larger size at the other end. This gives the effect of a growing moon.
The initial design of the sari was an experiment by Aziz which was inspired by the Pepsi logo consisting of a globe with blue, white and red stripes inside it. The technique involved painting a piece of fabric with swirls of colour, then folding and compressing the fabric between two circular wooden discs which are clamped together and put into an indigo dye bath. When opened the fabric that that is not accessed by the indigo dye shows the original painted base colours. The overall visual effect was of a blue ground with a pattern of equal sized circles with smudges of red and blue inside them.
Aziz showed this to Mriga and Amrit who then played around with the concept using the globe motif but with different colours inside. They created two scarves; the Day scarf, in which the base colours are shades of yellow and orange, and the Night scarf, in which the base colours are shades of grey. The random nature of the base colours gives the effect of the uneven surface of the sun and moon, while the clamp dying process leaves a white halo around the discs which adds to the planetary effect.
Aziz continued to experiment and created the Moon sari. He uses the colour range of the Night scarf, but goes a step further in using different size wooden discs in the clamping process. One end of the sari starts with a smaller size disc which expands to a larger size at the other end. This gives the effect of a growing moon.
Object details
Categories | |
Object type | |
Parts | This object consists of 2 parts.
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Title | Moon sari (assigned by artist) |
Materials and techniques | Tasar silk, clamp-dyed. |
Brief description | Clamp-resist dyed sari of woven tasar silk, with a pattern of moons on a blue background. |
Physical description | This sari is woven of tasar silk. Its unique pattern was created by first painting the fabric with shades of grey, then clamping the folded fabric between wooden discs before dipping it in dye. |
Dimensions |
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Gallery label |
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Object history | This piece was acquired directly from the maker during a visit to Bhuj to source material for the V&A exhibition, The Fabric of India. |
Summary | This sari is the result of a collaboration between Aziz Khatri and the fashion designers Mriga Kapadiya and Amrit Kaur of NorBlack NorWhite. Aziz Khatri is an artisan-designer based in Bhadli in the Kutch region of Gujarat. He is a specialist in tie-dyeing and trained at the Kala Raksha Vidhalaya, a school of design for artisans. Mriga Kapadiya and Amrit Kaur moved to Mumbai from Toronto in 2009 and set up their company in order to explore traditional textile designs and re-interpret them for contemporary lifestyles. The initial design of the sari was an experiment by Aziz which was inspired by the Pepsi logo consisting of a globe with blue, white and red stripes inside it. The technique involved painting a piece of fabric with swirls of colour, then folding and compressing the fabric between two circular wooden discs which are clamped together and put into an indigo dye bath. When opened the fabric that that is not accessed by the indigo dye shows the original painted base colours. The overall visual effect was of a blue ground with a pattern of equal sized circles with smudges of red and blue inside them. Aziz showed this to Mriga and Amrit who then played around with the concept using the globe motif but with different colours inside. They created two scarves; the Day scarf, in which the base colours are shades of yellow and orange, and the Night scarf, in which the base colours are shades of grey. The random nature of the base colours gives the effect of the uneven surface of the sun and moon, while the clamp dying process leaves a white halo around the discs which adds to the planetary effect. Aziz continued to experiment and created the Moon sari. He uses the colour range of the Night scarf, but goes a step further in using different size wooden discs in the clamping process. One end of the sari starts with a smaller size disc which expands to a larger size at the other end. This gives the effect of a growing moon. |
Bibliographic reference | Miller, Lesley Ellis, and Ana Cabrera Lafuente, with Claire Allen-Johnstone, eds. Silk: Fibre, Fabric and Fashion. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2021. ISBN 978-0-500-48065-6.
This object features in the publication Silk: Fibre, Fabric and Fashion (2021) |
Collection | |
Accession number | IS.3:1,2-2015 |
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Record created | February 12, 2015 |
Record URL |
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