About Me
Harleen Kaur and The Unsung Karigars
Harleen Kaur is a Fashion Designer of Indian heritage. In collaboration with the Karigars (craftsmen) from her family’s textile business in India, her designs focus on rich Indian textiles that are handloom woven, handpainted and hand embroidered. Her aim is to honour and recognise the weavers and their hands, that adorn these fabrics with vibrant motifs.
Growing up in India, I was surrounded by various types of vibrant textiles. My family's textile manufacturing business in New Delhi, caters to the Indian/South-Asian weddings. This gave me the immense privilege to see the extraordinary skill and labour that goes behind creating these textiles, like pieces of art. Yet, as I grew older, I began to question the state of this industry as the tradition of handmade textiles slowly dies. Have we neglected our weavers due to the rise of fast fashion? The collection addresses some of the current labour ethic issues in the global textile industry.
INSPIRATION
‘The Unsung Karigars’ does storytelling through creative collaboration and Indian craftsmanship
The concept draws on the political teachings of Mahatma Gandhi to create garments that challenge the post-colonial structures of capitalist extraction. Gandhi envisioned a decentralised economy based on self-reliance, one where mechanisation should serve humanity, not replace it. Today we see the opposite as India becomes dominated by industrial capital; human labour is increasingly mechanised and digitalised; and traditional crafts are no longer desired or able to support livelihoods.
This collection is a collaboration between Harleen Kaur, and the skilful karigars (makers) interviewed for her ethnographic dissertation who continue to practice their craft in New Delhi: Manoj, Savita, Sabir, Raja, Rekha, Prem, Sonu, Anwar and Kaleem. Artisans who are tangled in a world of exploitation and hierarchy, are here brought together to weave their stories and celebrate their craft in thousands of fine threads.
MY WORK
PORTFOLIOS
DETAIL
The Unsung Karigars weave their stories, they speak through their work.
Through hand-painted motifs of disassembled power loom machinery these garments remind us of the non-human makers that remove livelihoods and the dignity of labour. The large silhouettes become a canvas for these motifs, a showcase for the weaver’s skills, where different Indian hand-embroidery techniques are placed on top of hand-painting. Vibrantly coloured silk brocades are deconstructed and distressed to represent the weaver’s entanglement in today’s global fashion industry. In response to Gayatri Spivak’s question, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ the collection asks whether the unsung karigars can speak through their textiles. Can they remind us of the beauty and human capacity that we are losing. Can fabric surfaces, too infused with time and labour to be quickly discarded when a new trend comes along, remind us of the destruction caused by mechanical reproduction.
“What I object to, is the craze for what they call labour-saving machinery […] till thousands are without work. The machine should not tend to atrophy the limbs of man”. - Gandhi, 1909
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