Latest news with #Dudhat
Mint
18-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
Morii Design: How a Gandhinagar-based studio is sewing up a stitch library
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 a new life into these folk textile crafts—rekindling both pride and interest among the artisans, while monetarily empowering them as well. 'Craft has a PR problem," says Kabir, 33, Dudhat's partner and the other half of Morii Design. An NID graduate, he manages marketing. Together, the pair realised they needed to create a 'stitch library"; not only did they need to catalogue various Indian embroidery techniques but also create a comprehensive repository of new stitch combinations . 'At the moment, we are working with four different communities: the Jat community from Kutch, sujani artisans from Bihar, kantha craftspeople from West Bengal, and the Rabari community from Kutch," says Kabir. 'We have developed almost 40 new functional combinations in the Rabari embroidery itself, and are still in the process of creating many more." Morii Design is also working closely with Bela block printing's last known custodian Mansukhbhai Pitambar Khatri, while documenting the motifs of this age-old art form. At the forefront of the studio, though, are the women artisans. Back in 2019, when Dudhat had first considered working with them, she faced resistance. On the advice of a friend who mentioned a particular community whose handiwork had remained largely unexplored by modern designers, Dudhat rode pillion for two hours to a village 35km from Bhuj, to meet a Garasia Jat cluster. The pastoral Muslim community's personal clothing showcases their detailed geometric designs and intricate cross-stitch embroidery called Jat bharath. The womenfolk waved her off: 'Nahi hoga—not possible". Undeterred, the ambitious and optimistic 24-year-old at the time, continued to return to the village the following months, gradually earning the women's trust. The women hadn't worked with designers before, but the promise of consistent work and a stable income was deeply reassuring. 'Today, the Garasia Jats are the longest collaborating cluster," Kabir declares. In Japanese, mori translates to 'forest"—one that's lush and deeply alive. After spending a semester at Tama Art University in Tokyo, Japan (2015-2016), Dudhat found herself drawn to the 'Mori Girl" aesthetic, a Japanese fashion subculture that romanticises a life that's in harmony with nature. The palette is inspired by the woods: muddy browns, moss greens, soft whites and calming pastels. The style felt like a natural extension of her own sensibilities. That quiet, forest-like elegance now runs through the visual identity of Morii Design. 'So, much of our work is about reconnecting with nature, and reminding people of the importance of trees, forests and the ecosystems we so easily take for granted," Dudhat says. Each tapestry or wall art is distinct with striking colours and abstractions. The process begins at Dudhat's studio, where she designs a prototype. First, she assembles a base: a patchwork of fabrics sourced from weavers across India. 'Just by looking at them, ideas begin to take shape, where different colours come together almost instinctively. The patchwork is created first, and then I draw on top of it, imagining the textures with embroidery threads. It's a very intuitive process." Dudhat then takes these prototypes to the artisan cluster. The craftswomen are invited to choose the design they feel most drawn to. 'Some of the older Rabari women are more inclined to do mirror embroidery, for instance, while many sujani craftswomen opt for larger pieces," says Kabir. 'Bigger is better for them, not only monetarily but when they hold the finished work and stretch out their arms, they experience immense pride in seeing the full scale of what they've created." The process of letting craftswomen choose what resonates with them offers them creative freedom. But with a wide variety of embroidery methods and intricacies, it was clear that a uniform percentage model wouldn't be practical—'Especially since many of our pieces overlap multiple crafts," Kabir explains. 'So we sat with the artisans and co-created a wage system from scratch, beginning with a base rate that they felt was fair, and moved forward from there." In the spirit of contemporising, Morii Design brings together diverse folk handiwork traditions. A single piece might begin in one region adorned with colourful motifs printed using 200-year-old Bela blocks, then travel to a cluster in West Bengal to be kantha-stitched, or Bihar for sujani embroidery, and finally get bedazzled with tiny mirrors by Rabari women. The ultimate production is one that has passed many hands, and carries with it the emotions and stories of multiple lives. 'That said, it's also important for us to maintain the geographical integrity of the technique," says Dudhat. For example, a running kantha stitch could be easily replicated by other clusters and communities. 'But we ensure that a technique that specifically belongs to a certain region is executed there itself, since it has evolved in that place over generations." At the moment, the focus is on digitising the stitch library, which remains private for now, with the new combinations intended to help train the artisans. As Morii Design stitches tradition and contemporary storytelling together, their work stands as a quiet but powerful act of preservation. Radhika Iyengar is the author of Fire on the Ganges: Life Among the Dead in Banaras, and an independent arts and culture journalist. She posts @radhika_iy
Indian Express
31-05-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
Trader held for availing ITC worth Rs 15.19 cr by submitting fake invoices
A textile trader has been arrested by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) in Surat for allegedly submitting fake invoices of Rs 100 crore to avail Input Tax Credit worth Rs 15.19 crore. According to DGGI sources, the accused, arrested on Friday has been identified as Yatin Dudhat, a resident of Varachha, who runs textile business by the name of Dudhat International in Surat. Dudhat allegedly received fake invoices from different firms without any supply of goods. The officials had earlier raided his office and business place in Surat and recovered several incriminating documents. Dudhat has violated the provision of sections of 132 of Central Goods and Services Tax, Act, 2017, an official said. Sources said that the name of Dudhat cropped during a probe following the arrest of Chetan Patoliya, proprietor of Kunj Fashion, Surat. On Saturday, Yatin Dudhat was produced before Chief Judicial Magistrate court of Judge R M Kalotara. He was sent to 14 days judicial custody at Surat Central jail by court. DGGI sources added, they had carried out a search operation at Kunj Fashion, on May 2. During investigation, the officials found Patoliya's involvement in availing the Input Tax Credit of around Rs 12 crores, with the help of fake invoices of sales and purchase of goods. Patoliya in his statements to DGGI had mentioned that he had passed on (sold) ITC to different firms – including Infinity Impex, Salton Impex, Manya Overseas and Shreeji exports, without supply of goods – in Surat. The DGGI is currently carrying out a probe in this case and are collecting the details of the firms that had received ITC from Kunj Fashion and Dudhat International.
New York Times
07-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
For an Indian Textiles Designer, It Takes Many Villages
Chintz, khaki, calico, gingham and yes, pajamas: India's role in the global textile trade has been so profound that its lexicon has shaped the way we describe fabrics, patterns and clothing. Similarly, Indian design motifs have remained durable worldwide symbols: If it's eternally chic paisley you want, look no further than a silk scarf from Yves Saint Laurent. One word not typically associated with Indian aesthetics, however, is 'modernism.' The world's appetite for color and exuberant detail has kept the country's tiger, peacock and teardrop motifs in circulation. Brinda Dudhat, a 29-year-old design entrepreneur in the Indian state of Gujarat, is determined to connect her country's pattern-rich textile heritage with a modern, abstract sensibility. Founded in 2019 in the city of Gandhinagar, her firm, Morii Design, collaborates with more than 160 textile workers in 12 villages across India to produce vibrant wall hangings, room dividers and artworks using traditional techniques, some threatened with extinction. Ms. Dudhat is equally committed to the artisans' well-being, offering paid training and upfront compensation through a transparent fee system that takes into account the size, complexity and urgency of each project. India has a complicated relationship with modern design. In the late 1950s, the government invited Charles and Ray Eames to meet designers, artisans and architects throughout the country, to propose ways to bolster its flagging craft industries and improve the quality of their production. Among the couple's recommendations was the establishment of a design school modeled on modern European institutions like the Bauhaus. That school, the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, is where Ms. Dudhat majored in textile design. She said the spirit of exploration that drove the Eameses to do fieldwork in the 1950s is very much alive and well there today. 'As part of our curriculum, we traveled to villages, studied their ecosystems and worked closely with artisans,' Ms. Dudhat said in a video interview. 'This early exposure gave me a deep understanding of village life and traditional crafts.' Her N.I.D. training was user-centric, she added. At every juncture, she was asked to consider for whom she was designing. Then, she spent a semester at Tama Art University in Tokyo, and her way of thinking shifted. 'It was like I got the best of both worlds,' she said, 'the structured, problem-solving approach from India, and the free, expressive spirit of Japan.' Ms. Dudhat named her studio after the Japanese 'Mori Girl' style, a woodland aesthetic involving sweaters, woolens and a mossy color palette. ('Mori' is Japanese for 'forest.') Key to her appreciation was the role of forests as ecosystems — operations that require mutual support to thrive. She said much of her desire to work locally came from seeing the toll mass production and globalization have taken on the craft traditions she learned as a student. 'In India, traditional crafts have been largely taken over by traders and factory owners who prioritize mass production over authenticity,' she said. 'They flood the market with machine-made imitations, capturing only the appearance of traditional art while stripping it of its essence.' Morii Design (the spelling puts a creative spin on the Japanese) does the opposite, preserving the integrity of long-practiced techniques that support contemporary patterns: frequently, meadowlike expanses of stitches that give each surface a subtle, grasslike texture. The company works with artisans skilled in Rabari embroidery, which originated in Rajasthan and Gujarat in the 14th century. (This is the kind of fabric that shimmers with tiny mirrors.) And it employs one of the last remaining masters of Bela hand-block printing, a once-robust industry practiced in an Indian village of that name, which has been crushed by more economical machine printing. A powerful example of the merger of old and new could be seen last year in Ms. Dudhat's contribution to the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial in Perth, Australia. Inspired by 70 years of temperature data collected by Ed Hawkins, a British climate scientist, she worked with a team of 65 Rabari artisans to create a seven-panel work titled 'HOPE.' The tapestry's base layer featured Bela block printing, with Ms Dudhat's design evoking the portion of the Saran River that once ran in that village but dried up amid warming temperatures. The second layer was stitched with Sujni embroidery from the state of Bihar, where the population faces an elevated risk of flooding. The third layer shimmered with tiny Rabari mirrors, reflecting the work's viewers, all implicated in the crisis. Priya Khanchandani, a curator who organized 'The Offbeat Sari', a 2023 exhibition at the Design Museum in London, noted that Morii Design's modern motifs were an audience pleaser in India as well as abroad. 'There is a misconception that Indians have tastes that are rooted in a timeless 'village' craft aesthetic but this isn't necessarily the case,' she said in an email. 'A contemporary Indian design aesthetic is very much alive, helped by the fact India has a young population and is a fast-moving economy.' Suchi Reddy, a New York City architect who was born and raised in Channai, India, said in a phone interview that Indian designers were craft driven by nature. Where she thinks Ms. Dudhat stands apart is in her working model. 'Reaching out to rural craftspeople and giving them a very viable way of earning a living that fits into their lifestyle,' she said, 'that is really amazing, I think.'
