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Anavila opened the Atelier today on Sustainable Fashion day at Lakmé Fashion Week in partnership with FDCI with her latest collection ‘Dabu’. This collection of traditionally printed sarees was set on the ramp against panels of Dabu samples representing the printing units of this art form. In step with the meditative rhythm of contemporary beats meeting traditional sounds, women in sarees with not a single stitch, petticoat, or blouse took the stage in drapes from pre-colonial India. The show was an experience for every sense.
Sonali Bendre, Konkona Sen Sharma, Mandira Bedi, Sheeba Chaddha, Ashwini Iyer, Manasi Scott, Sonali Kulkarni, Rajshri Despande, Monica Dogra, Sona Mohapatra, and Gauri Shinde were in attendance.
This season Anavila pays homage to Dabu-an ancient mud resist hand block printing technique from Rajasthan, the origins of which can be traced to about 675 A.D. It is a time-honoured village handicraft practised in several rural areas of Rajasthan. In the past, Dabu was only done by women; but today the secrets of the craft are being taken forward by a handful of families who are carefully passing on the craft to the next generation.
Dabu plays a magical role in Anavila’s repertoire of saris, the length of the textile serving as a perfect canvas for ancient storytelling. If the sari can be seen as an emotion, a state of mind, it is the repository of our past and present memories. Not bound by modern accoutrements of style-zippers, buttons or belts, the sari, uncut and unstitched fabric, speckled by Dabu motifs, flows into the vessel that is the body. The sari becomes the fabric of life.
Dabu, which comes from the Hindi word dabana or press, is very labour intensive and involves several stages of printing and dyeing. A deeply sustainable practice, it honours local resources (mud, gum, lime and waste wheat chaff), and a complete reliance on the bounty of nature. The slowness of the process and the design repetition both lend themselves to a kind of meditation where the maker and method become one. The process is so immersive, it is said, the mind ceases the whirlwind of thoughts and seeks only the unspoken quest for beauty and design symmetry. It is no wonder, Anavila’s Dabu saris have extraordinary beauty and depth, the natural dyes of ivory, ochre, sage green, indigo, madder, kashish and black with a luxurious presence of gold and silver- gently washed out by the sun. Fluid florals and architectural geometry, the motifs, are derived from the natural surroundings of local flora and fauna. Sometimes, like our lives, the mud paste cracks and leaks, creating a distinctive vein-like effect- a perfect example of Wabi Sabi- the beauty of the imperfections of the hand.
“Dabu is about creating beauty through mud. This collection brings forth the relationship between not only the art and the artisan, but also a deep, symbolic bond between human beings and the earth they stand on” says the designer Anavila.
Mud teaches us that life begins from the ground-up, that a tree does not grow from the leaves but from the roots embedded in mud. It is full of nurturing minerals that feed the soil and soul. Mud is our healer.
Anavila’s collection is a homage to conscious consumption that takes into account the people, the process, the product and the purpose of creativity. And Dabu steeped in creative oneness with nature makes her collection symbolic of the grace of the feminine experience within nature.
Words by Bandana Tewari
