Tradition and Modernity

I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED to show what comes before the weaving process of Ikat,” says Gunjan Jain, textile designer and artist. “The yarn is a complete work of art in itself.” A duo of her textile artworks turn the statement alive. Take, for instance, the work titled Floating Flowers, in which Ikat yarn strung together on a frame depicts pink flower petals drifting on a purple base. In another piece titled The Hallucinating Sea, swirling lines of white create an impression of waves on a deep, midnight blue expanse and a tiny purple spot marks a boat. The works were exhibited early in September as part of Voyages, a collaborative art show between Jain and muralist Suresh Muthukulam and curated by Jaya Mani in Delhi’s India Habitat Centre.

Art is a comparatively new medium for Jain, but textiles are a familiar haunt. As founder of Studio Vriksh, Jain has spent the last 17 years engaging with the handlooms and crafts of Odisha. The exhibition came on the heels of another accolade in August, when she received the National Award 2024 in Design Excel­lence. Jain often speaks proudly about artisans who have worked with her and won state and national awards for their craft, but this marks a personal win for her own design interventions. “I am espe­cially elated because the process of selec­tion [of the winner] did not stop at design,” she says. “It was certainly a key criteria, but I also had to show how I had been able to make an impact at the grassroots level, help weavers step up in terms of designs and finding new markets, and improve the community’s livelihood,”

Jain’s design oeuvre has always been woven with an extra weft of crafts inter­vention and community development. Art and crafts were part of her early years growing up in Delhi. Her parents ran a textile printing unit and her mother, art historian Pawan Jain, took her to muse­ums and galleries and inculcated in her love for handlooms. Graduating from Pearl Academy, Delhi, Jain worked with export houses for a few years before step­ping out on her own. “There was little design intervention from outside for the craftspeople, especially for markets in metropolitan Indian cities,” she says. “I wondered what I could do as a designer to bridge this gap.” Jain found her an­swer in a modus operandi of co-creation and deep crafts engagement. Shifting base to Odisha, she sought out crafts­people across villages and handloom clusters to work together and reimagine centuries-old textiles and techniques.

Every Vriksh project and collection be­gins not with moodboards but with grass­root engagement. “I do a sort of SWOT analysis in every village to understand where I should start. Are the craftspeople facing issues with yarn or dyeing? Is the problem perhaps quality control or that their design language is not relevant for the market? Or, is migration an issue?” she says. “I plan my design language for the community around the issues I find.” One of her first attempts was to bring back the temple border in a village, where the motif—a classic and widely-recognised Ikat pattern—was barely being woven anymore. Jain began by weaving it into dupattas, followed by a sari design she christened Desi Kumbha. “Even today, the Desi Kumbha sari is a hotseller,” she says. “The weaver who created the sari went on to win a state handloom award.”

In Jain’s hands, and on the loom of her artisan-collaborators, the sari becomes a canvas to depict stories from Odisha’s craft and cultural tradi­tions. One sari narrates festive stories of ‘Dol Purnima’ in Puri while another design depicts the ‘Das Avatar’. A play of proportion and colour energises indigenous temple borders, the mythical navagunjara, fish as a symbol of Odi­sha’s coastal heritage, pasapalli referencing the game of pasa, and the thippa (resembling fingerprints) among others. Meanwhile, Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s polka dots become inspiration for contemporary additions to Ikat saris.

Ikat and extra weft jala are heroes of Vriksh’s hero techniques, though Jain has also incorporated other crafts and textile traditions, from reviving Dhalapathar Tapestry and Ganjam Bomkai saris to translating hand-painted Pattachitra designs onto textiles. While its focus on Odisha remains unwavering, the brand has occasionally dabbled in fabrics and crafts from other regions. A recent collec­tion combines tussar silks with dabu, a mud resist handblock printing technique practised in Rajasthan. Jain has also incorporated eco-printing and kantha in Odisha weaves, as well as zari and Kash­miri tilla embroidery. Now, she is excited about exploring nettle fibre as an alterna­tive to cotton and silks. “We tried Ikat on nettle. I was nervous about it, and so were the weavers but we cracked it after a few failed attempts,” she says. “As designers, we are spoilt for choice with Indian hand­looms and handicrafts. I want to explore other crafts and we can marry them with Odisha’s fabulous tussars and crafts.”

The label’s saris, dupattas, and stoles, have found a loyal following over the years, ranging from famous names like actor-filmmaker Nandita Das to a host of sari enthusiasts on Ins­tagram. Jain has recently also introduced stitched garments—jackets, vest, dresses, and tunics— crafted from Odisha Ikat, Kotpad weaves and other textiles. These designs offer more potential in international markets where Jain has found her clientele growing, albeit in a niche, through retail events like the International Folk Art Market, in Sante Fe, New Mexico. Jain has also participated in the World Ikat Textile Symposium & Exhibition, and received the Award for Excellence in Handicrafts 2024 by the World Crafts Council.

India remains her biggest market— Vriksh has retailed primarily through exhibitions and crafts fairs, and through its online portal. The brand’s first store launched this year at The Kunj, a retail space conceived by the Ministry of Tex­tiles to showcase crafts-first Indian labels and designers. For Jain, the store marks a big step in her retail growth. “It’s a dream come true. I think as designers, we want a home for the products we make,” she says. “When I travelled for exhibitions, it would often feel like I was packing my home in a suitcase. But with the store, I feel more settled.” It is also a space where she is, for the first time, able to display the entire spectrum of her designs.

Retail and brand growth are among Jain’s big goals for the future along with honing her voice as a textile artist. Be­sides the Voyages show this year, Jain’s saris and textile art have been exhibited at Sutr-Santati (2022), Feeling Through Fibre (2024) at 47-A, Mumbai, and Gam­chha: The Extraordinary in the Ordinary by Dastkari Haat Samiti (2025) at the National Crafts Museum and Hast­kala Academy, Delhi. When it comes to artistic expression, Jain does not distinguish between the wearable and the visual. “Everything we make has a story. It is textile art, whether on a sari or something that goes up on a wall,” she says. Yet, working on gallery displays is fuelling a different creativity among her artisans. “While weaving these artworks, one of our weavers gradually made his own wall art,” she adds.

When Jain is not conceiving new Vriksh collections, a number of independent projects across India command her attention—facilitating Australian nuno felting techniques to make lighter, contemporary Namda rugs in Kashmir, yarn development with wool weavers in Kilmore, or helm­ing a Jamdani intervention in Phulia, West Bengal. Fashioning new expres­sions for Indian textiles is integral to her way of life. “It is the jugalbandi I enjoy most. Every time I work with any craftsperson, they are so skilled and knowledgeable that it challenges me as a designer,” she says. “I can’t imagine myself as a designer without crafts.”

co-creatorscontemporary marketscraftspeopledesignerfashionGunjan JainhandloomsmodernityOdishatradition