THE MOTIF MAKERS
YOGESH CHAUDHARY, RAGINI AHUJA, TANVI KEDIA, SNEHA ARORA, AND JOSH GORAYA
PRINTS AND MOTIFS, though extensively used in Indian fashion, have never been given the importance that a Mondrian-inspired collection from Yves Saint Laurent received, nor made the impact Mary Katrantzou’s kaleidoscopic patterns do today. They have always been treated as a part of the whole. And while Rohit Bal may lay claim to a widelyrecognised Lotus pattern and Ritu Kumar to her Tree of Life block-print motif, the real obsession with creating It prints for each season started with Masaba, inspired as she was by everyday objects ranging from cameras to cows. In the same vein, though very differently, today’s young designers are turning to various forms of printing and motif-making (digital, block, shibori dyeing et al) to create an easily identifiable vocabulary of their own.
For example, 27-year-old Yogesh Chaudhary of Surendri, famed for creating the Pacman print (based on the hit ’80s videogame), is going all-out with digital. “Throughout my fashion training, most of my work was graphic-driven. My brand is all about motif and print,” he says. Kolkata-based Sneha Arora used old military photographs as prints for her winter-festive 2013 line. The 29-year-old, who launched her label in 2007, says that she, “started with the aim of storytelling through design”. For Mumbai-based Tanvi Kedia, her “inspirations are vintage textiles”. Like her mentor Tarun Tahiliani, she takes vignettes from her own history—growing up in a Marwari family, she has imbibed a superb ease with colour and folksy motifs—to print on her bohemian kurtas, kaftans, and maxis. Ragini Ahuja, who debuted her label Ikai at Lakmé Fashion Week summer-resort 2013, favours oversized shirt dresses, unisex trousers, and tailored bermudas but “it’s really prints that excite me”. Her previous collections featured geometric patterns that could have come straight out of a sketchbook, much like Josh Goraya’s playful, multicolour ones. A protégé of Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna, Goraya mixes his slick prints with a modern, easy style and exacting fits.