All You Needle Is Light

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

The Registry of Sarees (Trust), “a trans-disciplinary textile documentation and research centre” turns 10 with a brand-new address on a leafy cul-de-sac in Langford Town. This textile trust, founded by Ahalya Matthan, a city-based textile revivalist and perfumier, has nestled itself into Prithvi, a stunningly restored bungalow from 1932. A plaque at the entrance gives us the storied history of this verdant, Art Deco property that has passed down from a Major-General in the British Army to CV Rangacharlu, the first Dewan of Mysore, before becoming home to Lieutenant Colonel VK Sundaram, the first project director of India’s Prithvi Missile programme, with a host of other accomplished custodians along the way.

So far, sew good

Now, the new digs of The Registry: Centre for Design will house their two pioneering, and growing collections. First, Meanings, Metaphor, one of the most thorough studies of khadi ever represented through swatches and sarees commissioned for a series of exhibitions – Khadi – The Fabric of Freedom – framed by the late Martand “Mapu” Singh, a legendary Indian textile conservator and developed by textile mavens Rahul Jain, Rta Kapur Chishti, and Rakesh Thakore. Second, Red Lilies, Water Birds, an extensive archive of South Asian textiles and traditions.

Within these walls, it has carved out spaces for Yali, their in-house textile label that interprets this textile trust’s research and study into contemporary clothing. There’s Pekko, an Indian daily essentials brand “built on a philosophy of unhurried care” founded by sisters Ekta and Silki Agarwal along with Ahalya, who brings her ISIPICA-Paris training in perfumery into the foray. And rounding off the permanent fixtures at this design destination is Indulge at The Registry by Ayesha Katrak of Indulge Indoors, a grazing platter service, that’s riffing on Indian ingredients and bistro fare with offerings from truffle flatbread to Nagarjuna chicken sliders to Tellicherry pepper steak and more – to be enjoyed under the generous canopy of a wisened mango tree.

From the vantage point of these pretty premises, Ahalya along with her team hopes to write the new chapters of this textile trust. For the past decade, they’ve been “trying to understand textiles,” she says. “And now, I think there’s a lot more narrative, research, and people in textiles documenting its history, the traditions, the weavers, the community around it, the meanings behind motifs, and so on. And it’s all very nice and lovely,” she adds. “But now, our interest has come to include documenting textile design in modern India,” she explains. “And we can’t do that alone. We need a space that will enable us to interact with other mediums of design, which could mean architecture, photography, graphic design, and visual communication. Did I say furniture already?”

Day of the thread

In the service of their new vision of “being an interdisciplinary design centre,” their inaugural exhibition Perched Upon a Woven Sky curated by museologist and archaeologist Aayushi Jain reimagines the showcasing of traditional textiles. Here, 45 sarees have been brought together to “explore textiles through the ever-changing interplay of light, colour, and perception.” Ahalya reminds us, while we might “realise that there’s so much process, materiality and skill” in the creation of these textiles, it is the dialogue between light and these dimensions that allow for us “to perceive textiles in a certain way.”

On our walkthrough with Vishwesh Surve, a spatial designer who designed this show, we began to delight in this exhibition’s tangential exploration of Indian textiles. The narrative spine of this showcase allowed for us to move through the different colours of light through a single day. We started in the darkest room, a nod to the inky blue of midnight, before moving through a thrilling riot of yellows, pinks, blues, and closed out with the room that pays homage to the iridescent night sky. Along the way, Vishwesh draws our attention to “the different materials interacting with each other” to create these beautiful textiles ranging from sarees and shawls to swatches conserved from larger textile treasures. He speaks to “the different techniques or densities of yarn that result in different effects and interact with light differently defining how it is perceived.”

With these clues, we spot the magic unfold. Twisting the yarn in a Z-twist, meaning the fibres are twisted to the right, as opposed to the more popular S-twist, to the left, creates the appearance of rippling stripes if the sarees are viewed from a certain angle. Choosing to weave flattened, fine metallic wires into textile in badla work results in shimmering textiles. The bold use of colours, like in the tri-coloured Mubbagam saree, echoes its function as a saree for classical dances because it best showcased the geometric nature of these forms. The glamour of the sheer sarees speaks to the versatility of this garment that can be draped in any season from a cool evening to a hot afternoon.

Through this exhibition, we were gently reminded that a single weave morphs through the course of a day. It transforms from starched to soft but also it’s “never quite the same colour twice.” It is a quiet but steely argument for the oft-ignored reality that Indian textiles are a living, breathing archive.

The details: Perched Upon a Woven Sky, presented by The Registry of Sarees (Trust) and curated by Aayushi Jain runs till August 20th. The Registry: Centre for Design, “Prithvi”, 7, Cornwell Road, Langford Gardens, Tuesday-Sunday, 11am – 6pm.