Client: Weavers Studio, Kolkata
February 2011 – July 2011
Weavers Studio was pioneered by Darshan Shah in 1993, and has since been active in the field of reviving textile traditions and innovating them to suit modern aesthetics. It is well known for its contemporary silhouettes and wearable textiles using hand-block printing, handloom, and hand embroidery techniques. The studio based in Kolkata employs more than 250 craft persons directly and several others indirectly. The company’s R&D team has worked on topics as varied as Trade Textiles, Khadi, Jamdani, Indigo Dyeing in Africa, Vietnam, India, China, Thailand and Japan amongst other areas of research.
Weavers Studio has a design repertoire of more than 20,000 wooden blocks, 1000 textile reference books, 500 old and rare textiles from India and abroad, as well as contemporary world textiles from Japan, Africa and Indonesia.
Our role
Eka was asked to lend our cataloguing expertise to organise the textile collections, and further develop it into a truly representative sample of the textile arts of the subcontinent. We also assisted Weavers Studio in growing a study and resource centre from this initiative, which complemented not only their own R&D, but also acted as a one-stop shop for students and lovers of Indian textile. Textiles from the collection were showcased in the ‘Vastra’ exhibition at Kolkata, also curated by Eka.