Designer Alienation

Between the sexed-up fashion industry and faceless artisans, the thread which weaves the tale of prosperity is replete with tragedy

Akash Bisht Delhi

Ismail Bhai, a 70-year-old-artisan, with wrinkled face and fragile fingers, expertly puts a needle across a plain silk cloth in the process of knitting a design. Glaring through his thick glasses he weaves a leaf on the cloth with multicoloured threads. Once done, he beams with pride and exclaims, “Bahut sundar lag rahaa hai.” (This is looking beautiful.) Satisfied, he orders a tea for himself. “It’s one week of hard work and soon it will be on display in one of the prosperous shopping malls across the town. My designs are bought by many retail houses and fashion designers. I have done work for Ritu Beri and JJ Valaya, but, of course, for a very, very paltry sum,” says the septuagenarian, bitterness in his voice.

Ismail is one of the many artisans who migrated to Delhi from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in search of better opportunities. They work in cloistered, dingy rooms oblivious of the poor ventilation or hygienic conditions in the narrow, crowded Karigar Gali of the old market, Chandni Chowk, Delhi.

Remuneration of these master artisans varies from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 and relies on the skill and time required to weave amazing, meticulous, painstaking patterns on a plain cloth.  While the heavily ornamented designs fetch around Rs 1 lakh or more in malls and designer boutiques, these karigars are never paid the agreed mehentana (wages). He adds, “Big stores and designer boutiques never pay us the agreed sum and we have to literally beg them for our share.”

Many of these artisans recall selling their designs to leading Indian designers for a paltry sum. They say that most of their designs and products of hard work are displayed in malls under a different brand name. To their dismay, while many of these designers are rolling in riches, they are barely able to exist on their meagre income. “These designers do nothing for the poor artisans who are sweating in the ghettos of Kolkata or Coimbatore. They are here just to make money,” rues Pranjoy Guha Thakurta, a Delhi-based economic journalist. Often working in sub-human conditions, that defy conventions of all labour laws, these artisans plead for a little recognition. “We just want people to know that it’s the karigars who are behind these fabulous dresses. Let the designers make profits. We only want a little recognition because we have dedicated our lives to this work,” pleads Rehman, an artisan in the Karigar Gali.

Despite Indian designers going global and bagging gigantic contracts with corporate honchos and international fashion houses, these artisans are left wanting the support of the very fashion industry which thrives on their labour, skills and sweat. While the fashion industry is expected to grow, the fate of these artisans still remains uncertain, trapped in tragedy, in a rapidly changing neo-liberal realm. KPMG, management consultants, conducted a study which shows that the Rs180 crore Indian fashion industry is bound to inflate to Rs 1,000 crore in the next five to 10 years. But will accelerated growth benefit the karikars? Shopkeepers in Chandni Chowk unanimously echoed that designers exploit these workers and make them work 24/7 for a paltry sum. “Designers don’t care about these karigars sitting in small, stinking rooms designing clothes that will fetch them massive contracts and global recognition,” complains the owner of Hani and Mani Bhai stores in Chandni Chowk.

The pathetic monetary returns in the profession are also killing the dreams of the children of these craftsmen. “I wanted to be a designer as I learnt the craft at a very early age. I grew up watching my father turn an ordinary piece of cloth into fabulous outfits with wonderful patterns.  I couldn’t become a designer because it was difficult for my father to raise the kind of money that was needed to get admission in one of the high profile fashion schools,” regrets 24-year-old Aslam.  Most of the young artisans in the walled city of old Delhi aspired to be trained, professional designers, but due to lack of resources and guidance they have all ended up being wage labourers in the little shops of Chandni Chowk. “Most Indian designers have no inkling of embroidery, handlooms or handicrafts and try to imitate western designers. They design outrageous clothes that just can’t be worn in India,” says another young artisan.

According to these craftsmen, the hyped-up ‘fashion weeks’ are gimmicks to seek publicity and have nothing to do with the Indian apparel industry.  They see no point in designing clothes which goes with western sensibilities, when foreigners can buy the same kind of clothes in their own country from established fashion houses. “Many foreigners come to Chandni Chowk to buy traditional Indian work and not the expensive garbage these designers dole out for them,” says Ismail. This is substantiated by the fact that the Indian designer-wear market is barely 0.2 per cent of the Rs 5,000-crore branded apparel market while the Indian apparel market is around Rs 20,000 crore.

The hoopla built around the recent Wills India Fashion Week held in Delhi had these artisans wondering about its relevance in everyday life. “Who wears these clothes? I don’t even see westerners wearing these outrageous outfits,” says an artisan. According to these artisans, barring a few, most designers do not have their basics clear and are experimenting too much. They also believe that the timing of the fashion week was also wrong. They reason that with wedding and festive season round the corner, Indians would be buying heavily embroidered traditional dresses instead of what these ‘fashion weeks’ set out to sell. “I saw pictures of Wills India Fashion Week (WIFW), in a newspaper and I feel that our designers are only targeting the western buyers because ‘Spring-Summer’ doesn’t make sense to us. Besides, winter is only two months away,” said Aslam, like a veteran critic.

 There is no denying the fact that fashion fiestas like WIFW have contributed significantly to the spread of fashion as a dynamic force among Indian consumers and select section of western markets. But, this is only the tip of the iceberg. It has to reach a certain popular level to boost the Indian fashion industry to the world's centre stage to make a name for the country's heritage and poor artisans. The fashion industry needs to realise that its future depends on its capability to create wearable prêt collections. Fashion will only be acceptable if it is created keeping in mind the sensibilities of the people, their social fabric, geography, climate, work conditions, cultural terrain, economic status etc. And amidst all the glamour and money, shouldn’t the industry spare a thought for the genius artisans who make it all possible, in their own, aesthetic and humble manner? And besides, there were hordes of television cameras and page 3 journos in the Wills Fashion Week, but a handful of buyers. So where have all the buyers gone?