Kochi khadi: Stiffer but with many possibilities

Designers from across the country share their One Zero Eight and khadi collaborative experience 

Pero’s Aneeth Arora has planted nearly 300 shrubs, flowering and fruit trees at One Zero Eight, including eight varieties of palm. But she is still surprised at how difficult it was to find her go-to pop of colour, the bougainvillea, in Fort Kochi nurseries. It appears that the Delhi-based designer, who took home a large Kathakali mask and memories of a fiery mud-crab dinner at Fort Kochi’s Oceanos, was also inspired by her 2015 spring summer collection — Love on Foliage. Back then, she had published a garden journal that described itself as “a little book all about the love, soul and heart that one puts into creating something. Where one is so passionate about what one does that they give a piece of themselves to what they create”. The book was about plants, flowers, seeds and growth. She referred to it as the journey of creation. “I want to create a jungle at One Zero Eight. This was a holiday for me and I got a lot of pleasure out of working with the plants,” she tells me about her 2022 visit before the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

Here is what some of the 35 designers showing at Fort Kochi’s new fashion address have to say: 

Ujjawal Dubey of Antar-Agni: We have been associated with One Zero Eight since 2018, and the curated project Colours of Resilience is a beautiful idea, where so many designers work on the same fabric and same amount of meterage to create multiple ensembles that reflect the simple ethos of handspun and handwoven. 

Gaurav Jai Gupta of Akaaro: Kochi for me is a lot about diversity and KMB forms a perfect backdrop for all things design, art and craft. I have some fine memories from my visit there. Handspun, handwoven khadi in Kerala, is slightly stiffer when it comes to fabric quality, compared to the other khadi clusters I have worked with. And that brings with it many possibilities as a designer and at the weaving stages to experiment and innovate.  

Karishma Shahni Khan of Ka-Sha: We have had the chance to approach the Kochi khadi differently each time, while staying true to the fabric and its form. Khadi is such a versatile fabric and aligns seamlessly with what we do at Ka-Sha, especially the way it takes on colour and adapts to various surface techniques. Fort Kochi is a historically relevant town, and now for the past decade as a city of the Biennale it brings in the right audience that understands design, art, fashion, handmade, and the entire cycle of creative ideas. We have had an amazing experience with the concept space. 

Padmaja Krishnan: Khadi is a symbol of pre-industrialised handmade cloth that is an antidote to everything mass produced and homogenised. The Kochi experience is different as the fabric is provided to every designer to interpret it their own way. That is perhaps an interesting take on the ‘Save The Loom’ project that started as a natural response to the floods that destroyed so much of the local looms and handloom activity. The diverse architecture from temples to synagogues to palaces is something I find fascinating about Kochi. The simplicity of Kerala textiles is also unique. It was satisfying for me to use this  mundu textile to create low crotch fisherman pants that can be worn by men or women. What I am most happy about is that the scraps from the edit have been used to create textile neck pieces. 

Colours of Resilience: Himanshu Shani of 11.11/Eleven-Eleven about designing the new Kochi store