Is India’s Savoir-Faire Getting Its Due Credits?

India’s profound expertise in craftsmanship has seen a notable demand and growth in the past 2 decades. India currently supplies about 95% of the world’s handwoven fabrics. Economically, handloom has become one of the largest employment sectors in India after agriculture, with nearly 3.5 million workers weaving its success. India’s handicraft sector, popularly tapped by global luxury brands for embroidery and local artisan savoir-faire, is also flourishing, with exports reaching USD 3.6 billion (Euros 3.3 billion) in FY23 (luxury and non-luxury). “India has become one of the leading choices for several luxury brands to outsource expert craftsmanship”, says Maximiliano Modesti, who moved to India around the turn of the century to set up atelier 2M Design Studios and bring India’s world-class savoir-faire to luxury brands in Europe. Modesti's stint with India started in the early 1990s at a time when “India was commonly perceived by European luxury fashion brands as the place to produce 1$ T-shirts” and not for its age-old craftsmanship. “Made-in-India in the 90s was a dream and not an attraction,” he notes.

Chanakya, the Mumbai-based atelier that collaborated with Dior for the popular Dior Fall ‘23 fashion show hosted in India, was founded in 1984 by entrepreneur Vinod Maganlal Shah, who was keen “to apprise the world of India’s artisanal legacy”, says Karishma Swali, Shah’s daughter and the managing & creative director of Chanakya International. “And share not just the varied genres of crafts that exist here but also the sheer mastery of the skills honed by artisans”.

Historically, even in the 16th & 17th centuries, some of the most beautiful fabrics came from India, notes Modesti, “Somewhere between then and the mid of last century, the fashion industry lost knowledge of India’s prowess to make great quality textiles.” While some luxury fashion houses overlooked India’s significant artisanal legacies, Jean-Louis Dumas of Hermes, in his many travels to India, saw the potential and was eager to utilize it in Hermes products, claims Modesti, “He gave me a project in the mid-1990s to embroider some fabrics for Hermes store windows. But it was only in 2005-2006 that Hermes put the first Made-in-India tag on one of its products. It was a historic moment for me”. Isabel Marant and Dries Van Noten were among some of the other few designers who used made-in-India tags in those days, he adds, “It is only in the last few years that the world has become more aware of India’s might in the luxury fashion supply chain”

The emergence of Indian designers and couturiers such as Falguni & Shane Peacock, Anita Dongre, and Sabyasachi Mukherjee in the global fashion arena evolved the perception and reinforced the virtuosity and might of India’s artisanal mastery. Fashion icons such as Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, and Sarah Jessica Parker adorning their labels made it more and more agreeable for Western luxury brands to acknowledge their supply chain association with India. Years before Dior celebrated its association with India’s artisans through its fashion show in 2023, Christian Louboutin materialized his first capsule collaboration with globally renowned Indian couturier Sabysaschi Mukherjee in 2015, followed by a string of full-fledged collections that were presented in Louboutin stores around the world.

India is now home to hundreds of ateliers that supply fine artwork to luxury fashion brands from around the world. India’s mastery in handicrafts and contribution to the fashion industry is slowly earning its due credit. But most fashion brands still want to keep their connection with India a ‘trade secret’. As the luxury fashion industry strives to become positively inclusive, isn’t it time to explicitly credit on a product label the communities & craftspeople that create its various facets? “When an embroidered panel that is made and shipped from India is used in a product finished in another country, then the product is tagged with the name of that country. even if the majority of that product is made using that embroidered panel.”, explains Gayatri Khanna, founder of Milaaya Embroideries. adding that a luxury product gets a made-in-India tag only if it is finished in India. “Such are the ‘made-in’ label rules followed by most countries”, she informs.

To foster inclusivity, both parties, the exporting and importing nations, need to delineate more progressive rules, says Khanna, “For, e.g., if the embroidered piece from India covers a certain percentage of the final product, then an embellished-in-India credit can be added to a label on the product. We don’t want credit for the whole garment”. Khanna, who boasts dozens of luxury fashion brands as clients today, opened her first office for business in New York in the early 2000s and won contracts with popular American designers such as Vera Wang and Marchesa. Over the course of time and with an increase in demand, Milaaya branched out to key global fashion capitals - Milan, Paris, and London.

It is undoubtedly also through the spectacular events widely relayed on social networks that progress can be made, like the Mumbai workshop's recent collaboration with a designer to make a customized, one-of-a-kind costume for Beyoncé, adorned with 20’000 Swarovski crystals worn by the star during the Renaissance tour. "We are not supposed to say who we did this for," says Gayatri Khanna.