Niki Mahajan focuses Indian textiles

Fashion designer Niki Mahajan, who is committed to the cause of

reviving Indian textiles and crafts, is making efforts to take India’s indigenous crafts to the global platform. She is presently working to revive the almost extinct craft of Lucknow — Badla, which is an old embroidery where the metal is first stretched for long to get very thin, paper kind density.

The strip of metal is then passed through flames to get different colours and then cut into very fine wires. These metal wires are then inserted in the fabric and beaten with a tiny hammer for hours and then embroidered. Considering the amount of time that goes into it, there are just a handful of badla craftsmen left in Lucknow. To revive the glory of this beautiful metal embroidery, Mahajan has set up a unit in the Nawabi city where she has employed the people associated with this craft and has been successful in revival of this art.

The designer is also known for her revival of block printing and has blended the craft of designed blocks with the art of cloth printing. Having learnt about block printing, she now has artisans that design especially for her design house. Mahajan’s block printed garments now adorn numerous high-end retail outlets all over the world like Anthropologie, Isetan, Bloomingdales, Harvey Nichols, United Arrows, Fred Segal to name a few.