Mita Parekh's 'The Artisans of India' at Fifty: Limited Edition Silk sarees | Dupattas | Stoles

"When the first banner of a Mita Parekh exhibition went up in Bombay there was much excitement. It was the first time that Bombay had seen block prints with a difference. A trend was set and a beginning was made..." wrote Meher Castelino, India's first fashion chronicler, who named Mita Parekh the doyen of Indian fashion in her 1994 book 'Fashion Kaleidoscope'.

Mita's first exhibition in 1974 created a storm, and her name became synonymous with the word ‘designer’, under the banner 'The Artisans of India'. Fifty years on, ARTISANS’ brings Mita Parekh’s ‘Originals’, with a limited collectible edition.

About Mita Parekh

Mita studied Economics at Bryn Mawr College, and Design at Drexel University, Philadelphia, in the late 1950s. She encountered mid-century Modernism first-hand, visiting leading design studios and showrooms at the peak of the movement. True to her roots, she however remained grounded, and studied the extraordinary collection of paisley shawls at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for her MFA thesis.

Back in India, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mita exported block printed cottons, following the rage for bohemian Indian block prints in the West. Hippie chic ricocheted back to India, where the salwar khameez, a north Indian dress, emerged as a fashion-forward look for a new generation across ethnicities and geographies within India. For instance, for her teenage daughter in mid-1970s Bombay it was a cool alternative to Saturday-Night-Fever-drain-pipe-denim jeans!

Mita’s brand was defined by ‘the traditional made contemporary’ look. In 1974 Mita introduced ready-to-tailor block printed coordinates and sarees in Bombay, transforming the genre with her unmistakably fresh colour palette. It drew the city’s discerning elite. Block printing flourished as she worked with karkhanas in the city. Before long she had her own pigment-block-printing workshop in her home in Gamdevi, where she could experiment with colour and composition to her heart’s content, using her own hand-carved signature wood block patterns.

By the 1980s leading Indian women's magazines, Femina and Eve’s Weekly, partnered with Mita. The late Vimla Patil, Editor of Femina, initiated a wildly popular mail-order-coupon-series on the monthly center-spread. It was a watershed moment for fashion in India, as cutting-edge design reached the hinterland. ‘Mita Parekh’s Collection’ was available at deliberately accessible price points. Despite being the epitome of style, the label was not positioned as a luxury.

Mita had the honour of revitalizing Khadi garments for the Khadi Village Industries Commission (KVIC) in the 1990s, launching it to the world in London, in 1992. Her portfolio includes dressing the past-Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi; Bollywood film stars; and the Miss India and India's Miss World winners who represented a confident post-Independence Indian woman. Most of all, her designs are remembered today by women for whom the new look represented their youth, and a modern pan-Indian identity.

Widely imitated but never bettered, Mita brings a limited edition to Mumbai once again, experimenting and co-creating with a master of the rare counter-intuitive technique called 'discharge' block-printing. 

Marking fifty years since her first exhibition, it is an eagerly awaited comeback.