The Ikat Invasion

Which is why, be-sides the now-overused dots and stripes, there will be versions of ikat, the Indian geometric pat-tern, in many collections, besides phulkari, also more angular in the motif, which was used by some de-signers like Shantanu and Nikhil last year as well.

If Oscar de la Renta startled fashionistas by using ethnic ikat designs on his belts and jackets for his au-tumn- winter and spring-summer collections last season, Indian de-signers are quick on the uptake. On September 3, when Delhi designer Ranna Gill showcases her collection on the runway, the leitmotif of her spring-summer line will be ikats. Gill has culled the pattern from Central Asian countries, where ethnic groups like the Uzbeks and Tadjeks hand-craft the traditional pat-terns in a melange of vibrant colours us-ing a technique known as Abr-bandi.

Gill8217;s only deviation has been in that she has chosen to interpret the handcrafted patternin a print form.8220;I have always been keen on design skills from that region. I am more adept at prints, so I got the motifs printed. But I have tried retaining the feel of the hand-woven texture by adding sparse embroidery,8221; she says.

Bangalore-based Deepika Govind has also been working on ikats for the last two seasons. Her autumn-winter 2006-07 collection, Parchment Blues, had Govind creating outfits by using the ikat motifs in monotones, a technique she had learnt during her extensive research work in Orissa. For her spring-summer collection, Govind has used jeweled tones to give an Origami-like effect to her outfits. 8220;I have called my collection Origami, because some of the dye and printing techniques that I have used follow from the way its patterns are made,8221; says the designer.

One of the reasons for the sudden popularity of the ikats is that designers realise the need to add some in-trinsically Indian elements to their collections for value addition. 8220;There should be a reason for foreign buyers to invest so much money in them. If Indian designers offer the same thing as the West, then there8217;s no reason why they should look to India,8221; says entrepreneur Sunil Sethi, whose company represents buyers like Selfridges and Tsum in India. Indeed, when the colourful boho look was in vogue on international runways, Indian designers used a range of tie-and-dye to give an Indian interpretation to the trend. Now, it8217;s ikat andphulkari that is getting all the at-tention.

8220;Everybody knows that India8217;s stronghold is design, so we need to max-imise the advantage,8221; says designer Payal Jain, who has been working on a Govern-ment of Orissa project to re-interpret tradi-tional motifs in an international context. Jain is working with weavers in Sonpur to give the ikat a new twist. 8220;Since the purpose is to send these garments to international fairs, we have altered the motifs largely to suit the international markets,8221; says Jain. So instead of the popular pentagonal motifs, she has cre-ated dragonflies and other colourful forms with the same.

Designer Gaurav Gupta has taken the whole process a step further. While he has used paneling and patchworks to keep pace with the trend, the geometric patterns are not limited to the design alone. The form gets a similar interpreta-tion. 8220;Using linear pat-terns, there are lines running across the outfits which assemble in an em-broidery.

That lends a sculptural symmetry to the clothes,8221; he says. Not that he hasn8217;t tried his hand at doing things the tried and tested way. For his show at Rome Couture Week, Gupta8217;s piece de resistance was an outfit that had ikat motifs. 8220;The entire ensemble was very conceptual and I had given it a weathered look. So there were threads hang-ing out from the vest, which had the colours of the motif dyed on it. It won a lot of accolades,8221; says the de-signer who does pre-dominantly western wear.

Making waves Internationally

In his sixth season at Calvin Klein, designer Francisco Costa played around with circles and merged trends like ruffles into his over-riding theme.

Designer Oscar de la Renta has been using ethnic ikat embroidery in his collections since 2005. The jewelled look capped by the ikat jacket is from his 2005-spring-summer collection.

Marc Jacobs8217; ikat wave summer dress, part of his spring-summer 2005 collection, was considered the best in what was touted to be an otherwise lacklustre collection at the New York Fashion Week.