Urvashi Kaur (UK) is an eponymous label, creating apparel that’s sluggish and ethically designed, sustainably conceived, and consciously crafted, utilizing restorative indigenous practices. It shatters limitations created by gender, norm and didactic considering. The gossamer materials, the metallic sheen, the diaphanous high quality, the acquainted but unusual silhouettes, the traditional and conventional handwork of spinning, weaving, dyeing, embroidering and patchwork, create timeless clothes blessed with layered storytelling and far meals for discovery.
New Delhi-based Urvashi has just lately marked the fifteenth yr of name Urvashi Kaur within the enviornment of style. Her examine of theater and historical past has gifted her the gravitas of deep considering that’s required for giving one’s work a holistic grounding prior to now in addition to an intelligence with which to method the right here and now with a mindfulness that sustains her enterprise and can be sustainable for the planet and finest pursuits of humanity. UK isn’t just a style label, it’s an impressed manner of being, of connecting individuals to their interior particular person and the tales of their very own group, area and nation.
On this second of Bharat’s journey, when Ram is being celebrated with viral passionate fervor, Urvashi’s creations deliver the maryada, the dignity, again into the area of style. Her inclusive mind-set, working, residing, loving and sharing locations the values espoused by Ram on the centre of her work. Her style assertion is as nice and noble because the tales and myths that join us with the supreme being, a hottest avatar of Vishnu, the preserver of life.
Within the final three years, Urvashi has elevated her enterprise with hand tie-dye professional Mohammed Sabir by 900 per cent. Utilizing tussar monga silk that’s handwoven and hand tie-dyed places lehariya and block printing entrance and centre on the earth of excessive style, and in doing so, Urvashi has modified the lives of the various households whose livelihood depends on this previous Indian textile craft. UK, the model, additionally shares the story of those craftsmen, their communities, historical past, and legend on their social media handles. Within the promotion of this indigenous textile custom, UK has made it doable for the client to have a connection to India’s wealthy previous and to assist India’s textile staff and artists who should be honoured with our patronage. This deep connection that Urvashi has made between buyer and craftspeople has given her enterprise a lift that makes handwoven textiles 72 per cent of all her gross sales.
Urvashi, who grew up in small cities throughout India in a military household, makes use of the expression Ram Ram as a greeting to welcome and honour others, whether or not good friend, household or stranger. This greeting is past a non secular moniker, it’s a salutation that connects her to an India the place dignity for one is dignity for all. This deep-rooted respect for syncretic India for India’s wealthy celebration of plurality has permeated her life and work as a dressmaker. In a world polarised at each stage, UK’s collections give the buyer a wealthy providing that breaks each stereotype made by colonialism and perpetuated by fundamentalism.
Invited by Urvashi to stroll the ramp for her atelier at Lakme Vogue Week by FDCI at Jio World Conference Centre in Mumbai, I wasn’t certain what made me worthy of being given such an honour. Upon my arrival, I discovered myself subsequent to Danish Husain, my man-crush and one in every of India’s most good theater actors, writers, audio system, and different gifted individuals. Additionally, there was the queer activist, creator and culture decoder Parmesh Shahani, stylist Gautam Kalra, and stand-up comedian Mallika Dua, amongst others. We had been a part of the group and voices that Urvashi invited to offer physique and persona to her genderless cuts that flesh out her ageless designs. Choreographer extraordinaire Lubna Adam patiently indulged us novices of the ramp into being ourselves and strolling with the identical conviction with which we dwell life and join ourselves to the world at giant.
The disclosing of “Prana” from the Renew undertaking the place katran (style scraps) and discarded supplies are used dropped at the fore attire, saris, pyjamas and shirts, jackets and overlays and all types of pants – in sheer and gauzy materials, leheriya and shibori, all shifting about in the neighborhood’s distinctive and private method, making statements: Danish Husain together with his palms painted with the letters GAZA with blood staining them; Parmesh Shahani studying his personal e-book; Gurjeet Singh stitching together lips that may in any other case be telling us an inconvenient and unpopular fact. I used to be singing marsiyas, Islamic hymns, as a Hindu believer blessing my fellow Muslims throughout their holy month of Ramadan. As my voice echoed by the experiential theater, veteran actress Ratna Pathak Shah danced to the tune and notes of my track and regaled me and the viewers with the effervescence of her soulful magnificence. It was at that second that I understood what Urvashi had set about to do. She was unleashing the interior energy, the ethical fortitude, the energy of character, the peerless imaginative and prescient and readability, and the braveness with which this lot lived and liked, cared and shared. The viewers was transfixed, the skilled fashions visibly moved, and Urvashi – the model and the human – shone by the group that shared the ramp.
India’s G20 Presidency dropped at the world the Upanishad’s educating of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, a shlok that interprets into English as “One Earth, One Household, One Future”. By way of her meticulously designed, brilliantly executed, fastidiously envisioned, sustainably manufactured, humanely sourced, and responsibly crafted assortment of clothes, each haute and pret, Urvashi is paying attention to sustainable practices that is likely to be sluggish however that guarantee societal well being and wellness, join us to our personal roots and to these in our communities and nation who’ve given us generations of magical craftsmanship and exquisite artwork to put on and share.
As India turns into an increasing number of in style, as we take pleasure in having given Lord Rama a temple for his worship, we should not overlook that even earlier than we had a Ram Janmabhoomi (birthplace), we had an Advait Hinduism that related us to the very ideas that make us respect oneness in divinity after we have a look at one another as one and in addition all life and people issues inanimate that maintain us wholesome, rich and impressed. Ritual and dogma typically take us to dwait religiosity, which celebrates a duality that others who pray, communicate, and gown otherwise than we do. In doing so, we make enemies out of individuals we share the planet with. Urvashi’s atelier introduced alive the maryada, the dignity and the generosity of self, related to Lord Rama. I noticed this layered mythology and vibrant expression within the attire showcased by Urvashi. She, he, they, in her clothes and at her present, had been all celebrated and there was room for all. For these treasured moments, I felt I used to be residing within the true Ram Rajya.
Urvashi Kaur and her eponymous model have given India its second to be nation and tradition proud as they carry style again to our personal shores — with out the pejorative label of “ethnic” — and make sure that it represents each Indian and all our myriad methods of residing, creating, and celebrating life and being.