5 days ago
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
