Sanjay Garg

Textile designer, Sanjay Garg, has been credited with the revival of Chanderi textiles from Madhya Pradesh, brocades from Varanasi and soft cottons from West Bengal, through his label Raw Mango, a brand of contemporary Indian hand-woven textiles crafted using traditional techniques. Originally from Rajasthan, he has grown-up with many craft traditions around him since childhood, and he has tried to bring about an appreciation of these in his collections and professional life. Raw Mango is not just about design and colour but whose mission of preservation and regeneration in India permanently employs over 250 skilled workers. Raw Mango has adapted traditional designs to make them simple, sophisticated and distinctly contemporary, thereby creating a fresh new aesthetic that is both indigenous and modern. “We do not believe that our designs need to be kitschy to be Indian – Our colours and designs find their roots in Indian philosophy and traditions”.

The Turkey red archive has many imitations of chintz in their sample books. Chintz, originating in India in 1600, is a block-printing technique on glazed calico depicting flowers and other patterns in different colours, typically on a light plain background. It was hugely inspired by Indian narrative textiles and took inspiration from Mughal art, but gradually became westernised through its adaption to local botany and other non-Indian motifs. The intriguing depiction of monkeys in Indian mythology, philosophy and the Buddhist, Jatakas was the main inspiration behind “Monkey Business”. For India Street Raw Mango has explored the potential of the monkey as a Turkey red chintz motif and though this design set out to return its use of imagery to an Indian narrative within this traditional craft practice. The outcome formed the bases of the 2016 collection.