In Photos: Tracing the Influence of Indian Craftsmanship on the Global Fashion Industry

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All photos courtesy of Inspired by India, Roli Books.

Under Louis XIV of France, Indian calicos and chintz were so coveted that the government was forced to ban their importation and sale. However, French aesthetes continued to wear them at home in private defiance of the law. The history of fashion is full of similar stories of European fascination with Indian fabrics and designs. Inspired by India, fashion researcher and journalist Phyllida J charts a compelling narrative of India’s role in global design from the 1600s to the present. She raises concerns about colonial exploitation and cultural appropriation, which caused much of the spread of Indian design in the early days. For example, at the end of the 18th century, the Scottish town of Paisley was successful in duplicating the Kashmir shawl cheaply, so the Kashmiri bhutta style has since become known as “paisley”.

Drawing from this complex history, Jay presents a hopeful vision of a collaborative future—as evidenced by Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s collaboration with Christian Louboutin—in which “cultures can inform each other in a respectful, productive, and mutually constitutive manner rather than exploitative.” The book is dedicated to correcting the absence of Indian art from international luxury narratives – an obscure step in global supply chains or strange fodder for the Western imagination – but the mainstay of several important design developments, be it silhouette or embellishment.

Jay writes, “…for the current European craft culture, we need to add new areas, excavate their own luxury and craft histories, and fundamentally rethink the way we understand the geography of artisanal excellence.

Getty Images; Photo by Nina Lin/Life Picture Collection

Reeves Wetherell used 30 feet of embroidered Indian sari fabric and a matching skirt in a 1948 issue of Life magazine on white community women wearing different national costumes from around the world. A concept that today raises reasonable concerns about appropriateness and cultural intolerance.

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