Step by Step
The traditional jutti gets a pop makeover. Three entrepreneurs who have given it a fashion statement.
For Madhu Jain, ‘Made in India’ has been an obsession in her 31-year design career. Whether it is her innovation with ikat, or her work in bamboo-eri silk, she has been at the forefront of reviving India’s 2,000-year-old organic craft and textiles traditions. Now having applied for a patent for the invention of the biodegradable, environmentallyfriendly bamboo-silk ikat, she wants to focus on sustainability and eco-friendly production.
How do you describe your new bamboo-eri silk ikat?
In order to give the handlooms sector a muchneed fillip, I hit upon a winning formula—develop brand new weaves. Thus began my journey of innovating novel textiles by fusing two different weaving traditions from different regions into a seamless harmony, high on quality and design. Simultaneously, strong environmental concerns led me to experiment with fibres that leave the smallest carbon footprint, right from sourcing to production. This is when I discovered bamboo, which ticks all the right environmental boxes, in 2001. And once I discovered that, India was the second largest producer of bamboo globally, and I saw the urgency in tapping this rich resource. I realised that if expanded to scale, bamboo-based textiles could turn around the lives of India’s bamboo farmers.
I worked hard at perfecting my bamboo textile, blending it with other yarns for durability, and was instrumental in introducing bamboo as a textile at the 7th World Bamboo Congress in 2004. Later, when I was given the seminal honour of crafting a 115-feet high installation in the ‘Fabric of India’ segment for the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games 2010, I used my speciallywoven bamboo fibre. I spent the next 14 years further refining my textile, and last year, I unveiled bamboo-silk ikat—the first 100 per cent biodegradable textile of its kind in the world. This textile leaves a negligible ecological footprint, is ultraviolet protective, and has anti-bacterial
properties. I am excited to be presenting another first next year— bamboo-ahimsa silk ikat—which is even more environmentally friendly.
Your work assimilates two kinds of ethoses—from Northeast and from Odisha and beyond
Weaves are my passion. The dextrous skills of our master weavers have been honed through generations and cannot be replicated without years of hands-on learning. I have worked with weaves from several Indian states, from Andhra Pradesh’s kalamkari and uppada to the Assamese mekhla chaddar, Odisha’s ikat, and West Bengal’s baluchari. As a pean to ikat being a global weave, I have incorporated ikat influences from Thailand, Indonesia and Uzbekistan. To enable this confluence of cultures, I source artisans who were once famous for their crafts and who still practice them.
Ikat is one of the first ‘Made in India’ successes travelling from India to the spice route to the rest of the world. How can we reinvent that global success?
Yes, India was an original hub of ikat, from where the spice route took it all over the globe. While ikat is now widespread in several countries across Southeast and Central Asia, Central and South America, and Africa, the double ikat is found only in four countries—India, Japan, Indonesia, and Guatemala—as it requires a rare expertise and dexterity in weaving the motif in both the waft and weft. My concern is not expansion, but to deepen my work with bamboo-ahimsa silk ikat. While eri silk and bamboo fibre is used in the clothing industry, combining it with the specialised ikat weave is a leap forward. I would like to refine my textile further and see the possibilities with other weaves as well.