Looking glamorous in her rich bottle green and plum saree adorned with golden embroided 'butas', designer Anshuma Damani arrived in Colombo on Thursday for the launch of her latest collection of sarees. Straight from the airport and on to the launch, the vivacious designer speaks animatedly about her passion for preserving Indian culture, her unexpected career choice and her latest collection of designs titled 'Soul'.
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| Anshuma Damani |
Explaining her passion for Indian cultural designs, Anshuma says that the younger generation of Indians are less interested in weaving and printing designs and this poses a threat to the legacy of Indian cultural and traditional designing as ancient weaving styles and printing patterns can be lost forever if they aren't maintained. "That's what I want to do," expresses Anshuma, "I want to bring them forward and keep these designs alive.
I have weavers and printers from all over India, each city is known for its particular style, like the Maheswari style is from Maheswari and the Chanderi style is from Chanderi, so I give them a lead- an idea, and then they take it from there," she says explaining how her designers invent new weaves and patterns for her collections. "What I do is, add creativity to the field or else they produce the same designs over and over and that's why the younger generation is losing interest."
Anshuma says her forte is weaving and printing. In fact she started on her unexpected career after she made an effort to discover more about weaving and was drawn into designing since then. "I never imagined I'd be a designer someday," she smiles. "I'm actually a management student and I've done some Montessori teaching. It was after people asked me about different designs that I got interested in finding out more about them. While visiting temples in each city, I would also learn about their distinctive styles."
Having gained an interest in the different styles of weaving and printing she would spend days and nights with tradesmen picking up the intricate techniques. "At one of the places I learnt printing, I found a lot of ancient blocks- designs that were no longer in use, and played with them, making new designs. This caught the interest of the tradesmen there and they came up with new designs too," recalls Anshuma.
"For this collection I worked closely with Sujatha Pai, who is another saree designer. Her style is more contemporary, while I like to stick to ethnic designs. Together we designed this collection, which is of ethnic designs with an element of 'contemporary' to them so they will be appealing to even an international market," says Anshuma. Adding that these designs have a timeless feel, she says,"you'll be able to wear these sarees ten years from now and they would still be appealing."
The exhibition of 'Soul' currently on at Rithihi will continue till December 1st. All of Anshuma's designs are one of a kind and are of a limited number.
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