«With Maria Grazia (Chiuri, ed.) we are looking to the future: we would like to enhance our cultural center in Mumbai by inviting an artist every year and focus on the training and education of young people. We realized that design schools often lack skills in manual arts such as embroidery, but this physical know-how is essential to open the mind: we will start with a summer program in India and we would like to soon establish collaborations with design schools in Italy” explains Karishma Swali, who has also had showrooms and ateliers in Bologna for years. In recent years you have established important relationships with artists such as Judy Chicago, Olesia Trofymenko, Mickalene Thomas and Marta Roberti, without forgetting, among the many collaborations signed with the Dior maison, the one for the S/S 2022 collection.
«I have been working with Chanakya for many years», confirms Maria Grazia Chiuri, artistic director of the Dior women’s collections. «I have always had a passion for embroidery, even in times when, unfortunately, it was a technique not too highly regarded by fashion, which saw it more as a decorative element rather than a design practice. The relationship began when I was still at Fendi: looking back, we have been working together for many years. What immediately struck me was the passion and commitment in wanting to bring alive and current a technique that has an ancient tradition in India, the continuous research to find suitable solutions for every request and also the ability to keep up with the pace of frenetic times of fashion.” He then adds: «I could say that with Karishma Swali we have grown together regarding the awareness of social value: the Chanakya School of Craft is an incredible example of commitment to training for the independence of women and also of the importance of a conceptual gesture which in repetition becomes resistance practice.”
Karishma Swali (left), the managing director of Chanakya International with the artists Madhavi and Manu Parekh in their studio in New DelhiPhoto by Sahiba Chawdhary
And when at the end we ask her whether it is fashion’s role to support and preserve the tradition of craftsmanship, otherwise destined to disappear, Maria Grazia Chiuri replies clearly: «I wouldn’t be so pessimistic. Embroidery is always present in the collections, it is also loved by the new generations. Fashion is “mixed” in all its variations in craftsmanship and we often forget that the strength of the much-cited made in Italy is the balance between industrial innovations and artisanal intelligence. The fashion system can do a lot to ensure that the very important human capital that intertwines artisanal knowledge with industrial practices is not only protected, but also continuously renewed through actions that promote and enhance training, with conscious actions of cultural policy.”
In addition to the article on the Venice Biennale and Cosmic Garden, read also
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