Bhavani jamakkalam at London Fashion Week: Designer creates a line of bags and clothes inspired by the rugs

Designer Vino Supraja is all set to current her assortment Weave: A Bhavani Tribute on the London Vogue Week later this month. Her line will function purses made utilizing handwoven jamakkalams recognized for his or her daring, wealthy stripes in reds, blues, and greens, aside from western silhouettes made with patch-worked materials impressed by the rugs. The gathering is the results of a journey that Vino took to Bhavani in Erode district two years in the past.

“I wished to discover the area’s handwoven jamakkalams,” says Vino, who has additionally labored with a weaving cluster in Chennimalai for her line impressed by the people artwork type of therukoothu. At Bhavani, Vino noticed damaged and dusty looms lined in cobwebs. “I didn’t meet many younger weavers, with the present seniors themselves not getting a lot work,” says the designer who’s now based mostly in Dubai.

She feels that the rug format could not do a lot to revive the craft. “Jamakkalams had been historically unfold on the ground for particular events,” she says: “However individuals have stopped sitting on the ground today.” Vino wished to reimagine the rug as a style product. “The placing patterns are on a par with the Gucci stripes or the Burberry sample,” she says.

From Vino Supraja’s assortment that includes the Bhavani jamakkalam
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Whereas jamakkalam baggage are usually not new, Vino’s concept was to craft premium merchandise that she will be able to market in Dubai and Singapore the place she retails. “I wished to label and package deal it effectively,” she says. “The story that almost all luxurious manufacturers promote is that their merchandise are completely handmade. How is the jamakkalam any lesser? It’s a heritage product, and I wished to do my half for it,” she says.

The R&D took virtually a 12 months, with challenges in working with the material. “The way in which colouring is completed has modified over time,” factors out Vino: “Within the jamakkalam, horizontal traces are colored and vertical traces are white, however in the long run product, weavers make use of a method such that the white will not be seen.” This function proved to be tough to beat whereas making the luggage. “The white tended to be seen after we bent the material,” she says.

Designer Vino Supraja
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Diligent R&D helped resolve such points and Vino labored with grasp weaver Sakthivel Periyasamy to give you a line of purses in inexperienced, pink, and purple. Vino is from Vandavasi close to Thiruvannamalai. An architect by training, she has dabbled in radio jockeying and tv presentation earlier than discovering her name in style designing. That is her second time on the London Vogue Week; her line Purisai was showcased on the occasion in 2023.  

From the J Assortment by Vino Supraja
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Her upcoming showcase shall be kicked-off by a efficiency by classical dancer and theatre artist Vaanmadhi Jagan. “She’s going to introduce the jamakkalam to the London viewers,” explains Vino. Vaanmadhi’s piece, lasting just a little over a minute, has been choreographed by Palani Murugan, a therukoothu actor from the Purisai Duraisami Kannappa Thambiran Therukoothu Manram, to music composed by Paul Jacob.

“Consistent with the people beats of the monitor, I’ve picked foot actions from devarattam and thapattam for the piece,” says Palani, including that the dancer shall be holding the material in hand. “In direction of the tip, she has additionally integrated eye actions from Bharatanatyam,” he provides. The piece will set the stage for fashions to stroll the ramp, additionally to “playful, foot-tapping music” by Paul, Vino says.

When she conceived the present, Vino appeared for music rooted in Tamil folks traditions. “I additionally wished some English rap on prime of it,” she says. She spoke about this to Paul, who supplied her a monitor he had composed years in the past, that includes the voices of Chinnaponnu and Anthony Daasan. “He has used devices such because the parai and kombu in it, and the traces are impressed by a Bharati poem that talks concerning the surroundings and saving our forests,” she says.

Vaanmadhi, who visited Bhavani with the designer, got here up with a motif for the piece that was impressed by the meditative, rhythmic clackety-clack of the loom. “The visible rating for the efficiency is predicated on the swing of the straight traces and vibrant bands of the jamakkalam,” she says.

Music, says Vaanmadhi, is crucial component in a style present. “It units the tone for what the designer is ready to showcase,” she says. Takers for the jamakkalam could also be on the decline; maybe the style world will flip the tide.

The London Vogue Week is on from September 18 to 22. Luggage within the J Assortment are priced from ₹9575 onwards.

Revealed – September 18, 2025 01:53 pm IST