Arushi Arora
Bloom
2018
About Bloom’s philosophy is born with exploring the visual language spread across our cultural past. In India, the exploration possibility is a vast landscape which is full of magical surprises. Bloom is all about discovering the ancient stories and conveying it to the world through visuals. Raised in New Delhi, Arushi Arora was exposed to a multi cultural lifestyle and in the hope of reviving these cultures before they gradually die out is why she decided to take a step. This company was established with the idea of promoting Indian designs across the world for it’s heritage relevance and opening schools across India for the old textile masters to pass on their wisdom. Bloom is all about bringing light into people’s lives; the consumers, the artisans, the learners, the dreamers, the artists and more.
About
Bloom
Keeping the heritage alive India, being a place full of culture comes with it’s dark side; specially in the field of textiles. With the massive variety of textiles, the demand also increases with time. To keep up with this demand, craftsmen suffer the most. The living conditions of these craftsmen is grim and tiresome. Their lives are no reward for the effort they put in their work and with the increasing demand, work has taken a toll on this industry. Their skills take time to impart so others find cheaper and easier ways to achieve a certain ‘look’ to keep up with the consumption. This has increased to a degree that artisan’s are no longer required. In a world full of poverty, yet extremely rich in culture; Bloom wishes to keep the knowledge of artisan’s alive and help improve the economic status as well. By opening schools where these artisans will teach whoever wishes to learn from them and for them o earn a good living by doing so will encourage this field to blossom again.
Keeping the hertigae alive
Textiles Indian culture, amongst many others, has always had a strong connection to nature and it’s elements. A sense of spirituality has been one key thing that binds them together even if they all come from different corners of the country. This is something that can be visible in their arts and crafts; as different methods or styles may be used, the basis remains the same i.e. nature. Usage of flowers, animals, birds, natural colours and most importantly a mathematical grid can be seen throughout the spectrum of Indian textiles. These visuals are what Bloom will explore in the coming months. More information can be found on the website.*
*bloomdesigns.com
Textiles
Banarasi
Designs Digital designs inspired by the textiles can be found online on the website along with the detailed history of each. There will be a few designs released as collections every few months. Each collection will introduce one new technique or style and can be ordered to be personalised depending on the product producers wish to use it upon.
Designs
Toda
Paithani
Collection ROSES
2018
This collection will focus on hidden meanings behind textiles and how each represents our history. Stories that bloom from nature into physicality like Kalamkari, Shikargah, Toda and Ajrak.
Collection - Roses
Shikargah
Shikargah Shikargh is from Varanasi and is a banarasi weaving style. Banarasi is a very compact weave and are created using a zari which is a thread drawn out from real gold and combined with normal thread to make dynamic patterns with a metallic effect. ‘Shikar’ means hunting and ‘gah’ means place. To depict the hunting place, these textiles have animals weaved in; most important design amongst them is the lion hunting the deer.
Collection - Roses
Kalamkari ‘Kalam’ means pen and ‘kari’ means craftsmanship. This art form is executed on cotton textiles and is created in Andhra Pradesh. As the name suggests, it’s done by freehand painting on the cloth. The art form has been used as a means of story telling in the olden days. Visually representing the mythological classics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata painted on wall hangings for temples, and scrolls. This formed an association of Kalamkari to Hinduism. Hence one can see gods and deities in these textiles.
Collection - Roses
Toda Embroidery In the Nilgiri hills in Tamil Nadu lives a small tribal community called Todu. This textile has been passed on by multiple generations and is a symbol of their community. Toda is also known as ‘pukhoor’ in their local language which means flower. Toda, in reality, is a reversible embroidery on cotton cloth but it’s so fine it looks like a weave. Todas make shawls with the embroidered cloth to keep warm and is typically made only using black and red threads.
Collection - Roses
Ajrak In India, Ajrak is mainly made in Kutch, but originally comes from Sindh, Pakistan. ‘Ajrak’ comes from the Arabic word ‘Azrak’ meaning blue as blue is the most used colour in these textiles. All the colours used like blue, red, yellow, green, black and many more are natural dyes. These colours are printed on the cloth (cotton or silk) manually using wooden blocks. It’s a time consuming process as it takes many stages of colouring and washing. The most famous quality of this textile is the use of grid. All the designs are constructed with a visual grid to repeat the pattern in a web like style.
Collection - Roses
Collection MIDNIGHT
2018
Midnight is the representation of how hard work can deliver something extraordinarily beautiful. It introduces, parsi embroidery, patola, paithani and pattu. They all have been in our culture for ages and in need to continue on this path.
Collection - Midnight
Patola
Patola Patola is a unique weaving style done only in two countries in the world, India and Indonesia. In India, Gujarat is the main producer of patola weave. The speciality of this weave is its multicolour depth in motifs which is achieved by dying the warp and the weft threads separately according to the design and then weave them together in the end. It’s organised by created a grid in the beginning and having the final image in their heads already. This craft comes with experience and patience.
Collection - Midnight
Parsi Embroidery These textiles are a harmonious balance between four cultural influences- Indian, Persian, Chinese and European. It gets it’s name from where it originates, the Parsi community in Iran that now resides in western Gujarat, India. Just like the other artisans, the Parsi community was also inspired by nature like the trees, flowers, bamboos, birds and more. What sets these textiles apart from others is it’s intricate detailed elaborate designs making it very difficult to produce.
Collection - Midnight
Pattu Shawl It’s a woolen weave mostly used as shawls by both men and women. Made by the people of Kullu in the Himachal Pradesh which also gives them the name ‘Kullu shawls’. Mostly these shawls have a particular way of weaving so the designs are on both ends making it reversible. These designs are inspired by flowers and have a repetitive pattern which always has a geometric grid beneath it making it visually harmonious.
Collection - Midnight
Paithani This textiles is mostly done for sarees with either a cotton or a silk fabric. Made in, Aurangabad Maharashtra the speciality of these sarees is the kaleidoscopic visuals that they achieve by using brightly coloured threads but their trick is using one colour for the thread weaving lengthwise and another colour for the other thread weaving widthwise. These sarees will always have peacocks on the pallu (the highlight of the saree) to give it a natural touch.
Collection - Midnight
Bloom