A look into Commercial Street’s hand embroidery
Within the hidden lanes of a maze-like haven known as Commercial Street, a community of embroiderers work 12 hours a day unaffected by the fast fashion shops surrounding them.
The side lanes of Commercial Street are filled with crowded complexes and inside each one of these buildings, embroiderers occupy a space of around 100 square feet and showcase their works.
While outside each complex, tea-sellers and junk jewellery set-ups almost cover these embroidery shops, inside the complexes, each shop is placed next to each other like cubicles. On one side, customers hear the dialogues from a Hindi serial coming from a television box and on the other, the evening prayers at the Mecca playing on someone’s phone. In between all of this, there is constant chit-chat between the shopkeepers and the embroiderers.
In the Patni complex and in a building with a buzzing basement where 10 shops are built closely next to each other, a group of embroiderers work on their elaborate zardozi canvas.
“I started the shop 3 years ago. I have been doing hand embroidery for the past 11–12 years. I started out in Delhi and then moved to Hyderabad and now I’m in Bangalore. The way one works differs as you move from city to city. You learn a lot. In Bangalore, zardozi work is most popular and wedding outfits require zardozi embroidery. Here it’s called zardozi. In Mumbai, it’s called Shaadi or Nakshi,” Maqsood said.
Zoya Creations, situated in the basement of the plaza, is owned by Mohammed Maqsood and has been a part of the Commercial Street community for the past three years.
Zardozi, meaning ‘embroidering with gold’, is a craft from Persia that involves a mix of gold and silver threads along with beads, pearls and other precious stones. This intricate embroidery is usually done on fabrics like satins, silk and velvet. The zardozi embroidered lehengas are the outfit for most Indian brides. The speciality lies in the sheen and lustre of this three-dimensional look of the raised metal threads on the textile.
The embroiderers of Commercial Street are known for their zardozi and zari work on wedding outfits. Currently, zari and zardozi are the only forms in demand and these traditional stitches are being incorporated into western outfits.
Over the years, Commercial Street has managed to build both fast fashion stores and customised shops in smaller spaces. In terms of clothing, customers are exposed to a range of both hand-embroidered and machine embroidered outfits.
With the setup of fast fashion brands who constantly display their ethnic clothing with machine based embroidery, are these embroiderers losing their customer base?
“Sometimes customers come and sometimes they don’t. We can’t say much about the customers in terms of exact numbers. Orders come in quickly but otherwise, things move at a normal pace. There are a lot of shops around and the customer can take a look into all of them. Whichever shop they are drawn to, they go. There is no forced reaction from us asking the customers specifically to come and buy from one specific shop. It’s left to the customers. Our job is to work and make a beautiful outfit,” says Mohammed Abbas.
These customers come into the shop with their own ideas and pitch it to the embroiderers.
“The customer and I work together and create together,” Mohammed Abbas said as he explained the speciality of his kind of dukaans (shops).
Abbas is the main embroiderer at Zoya Creations who has been practising the craft for the last twenty years. Abbas displays his sample blouses by hanging them on the walls on his space and each one of them have different motifs, some even have names of the bride on them.
“I was in Bombay and I learnt the ways of embroidery there. But personally, Bengal is the best place to work. It is my home. But my work is what drives me. I love every type of embroidery. The secret is just to practice. Over the past few years, I have learnt to work with any cloth,” said Abbas as he worked on a piece of yellow georgette fabric with pink thread embroidery.
The laborious task to complete a wedding outfit takes about 2 weeks for Abbas.
“We try not to work the whole day. We have also tried to stick to the typical 9–5 timings because we need to go back and complete other tasks,” he said.
Each embroiderer refers to another. On asking Abbas whether there are others who specialise in Zari, he pointed to Arif and his team. Arif suggested visiting Syed Rizwan.
Syed Rizwan, an embroiderer hailing from Bengaluru, started learning the craft when he was 35.
Rizwan believes that these are not the real struggles for the dukaan, but the struggle actually lies in getting to them. The shops are located in gullies (streets) and there are small issues they have to deal with on a daily basis — customers can’t park their vehicles and they cannot take too many orders because every shop has a limited number of embroiderers. Rizwan believes that this creates a distance between the shops and the customers.
Rizwan’s shop, located in the lane opposite the BESCOM office on Dispensary Road is run by him and his friend, Javed Khan.
“I work here with my friend. As we’ve worked, our friendship has grown stronger.”
Javed Khan, an embroiderer from Mumbai, started working with Rizwan a few years ago and the two of them are known for their zari work on sarees.
“We work, we eat. There is no concept of Daulat-Shohrat (prosperity-fame) for us. We love working, it makes us happy,” said Khan as he worked his way around layering the zari on a pink Kanchipuram saree.
The community does not think of their fellow embroiderers as a competition, they believe that each shop has a speciality and their speciality speaks for them.
“If a customer likes us, they will come to us. If they like another shop’s way of working, they will go there. We all come from different gharanas and we are here to create clothes according to the customer’s ideas,” Rizwan said.
Mustak, born and raised in Kolkata, moved to Bangalore 12 years ago. He learnt the craft in a kharkhana, where he was exposed to all kinds of embroidery. Unlike the others who know and practice mostly zari, Mustak is aware of other kinds of stitches.
Mustak pointed to the threads on the blouse he was walking on and said,
“This is Indian, with beads. I love hedebo. I use that in the blouses. We get mostly blouses here. In Bombay, a lot of outfits were being made. There, we used to get commissions from brands. Here, people are different.”
Mustak believes that the fashion industry is a growing industry and he constantly argued that everyone must learn embroidery and study fashion design.
He also complimented the big shops like Mysore Saree Udyog and small boutiques. He said it is important as an artist to appreciate other artists. The only difference between all of them is the place they come from. But he believes they’re all here to present their craft.
Nicobar, a brand which stems from Good Earth, is a studio that ties both modern and traditional aspects in their products.
“Nicobar is so much more than just fabric and thread. At Nicobar culture and commerce intersect,” said Riya Bhankwal, PR Head at Nicobar.
The way Nicobar approaches embroidery is different from the embroiderer’s approach,
Nicobar also includes embroidery but they create products that are embroidered n a minimalistic manner.
“At Nicobar, we try and make an effort to use embroidery in a minimal and simplified way so that we can create something which can last. We try and pick inspiration from a traditional motif and simply it to make it more production friendly with pout losing its essence,” said Bhankwal.
Unlike the embroiderers, some of whom are 4th generation practitioners and others who have learnt the craft but have no degree, Nicobar is a studio with designers who have studied and been testing textiles and crafts for years.
The difference in their approach is seen in their products,
“I think it will be a simplified motif placement at unusual places. Thinking of more production friendly ways, maybe we would think of using the embroidery on more than just a garment. For us, it will be products, cushions, accessories, bed covers,” said Bhankwal.
“It depends on the client,” says Maqsood and he believes that the common ground lies in the importance given to the ideas. Speaking on behalf of all the artisans, Mustak points out how the embroiderers in Commercial Street do not let the number of orders determine the practice of their craft.
“We collectively believe that the only thing under our control is our creativity and work ethic, business and market trend is ever-changing,” said Mustak.
