Amba Twenty One Threads. Reliving a textile journey
Hema Shroff Patel, Founder of Amba, began her exploration into the world of weaving as a self-taught craft artist. Her love for handlooms stems from her love for simple handwoven cotton fabric, which she used to make pyjama sets for her children. From there, through her work with Rehwa and WomenWeave (two formidable handloom organisations from Maheshwar in Madhya Pradesh), Hema ji found herself singing a paean to the river Narmada through her own micro social enterprise, Amba, founded in 1999. She based her work on the realisation that weaving is a good source of income for the local weavers, while also preserving the ancillary practices of hand spinning, bobbin winding, and warping. Along with the spirit of preservation, Amba was set up to take modern techniques to the traditional weavers and create an aesthetic bridge between the old-world and the contemporary. And in that, Hema ji has been more than successful.
Now, with the launch of her book, Amba Twenty-One Threads, that captures more than 20 years of her work with textiles, Hema ji takes us through the process of creating her book and how it has once again brought together a community of creative people to narrate Amba’s journey.
The book
“This book is a personal narrative and a visual storytelling of my journey in textiles. The visual documentation was a very intuitive process as we have been documenting our work in moodbooks and detailed textile planning for many years. Digging it all up and organising this rich content was time consuming, yet it brought so much nostalgia! My biggest challenge was finding my voice and navigating the story in a way that will inspire young people in the craft sector who are keen to create, earn a decent living and do sustainable work through a social enterprise.”
Community of support
“Amba has grown from a passion project to a small social enterprise. Our micro label strives to create small batch, beautiful textiles. This would not be possible without the help of so many people who have supported us.
There are two threads in the book which reflect these relationships and partnerships. Thread VII, ‘Amba Angels’, is a tribute to all of those friends, patrons and clients who have hosted our trunk shows and helped us with administrative and accounting work through really busy times in our home studio. Thread XIV, ‘Behind the Scenes’, celebrates the many creative people from the graphic design, arts and fashion industry who have been involved for so many of our launches by doing design installations, being behind and in front of the lens as well as helping us with developing our design concepts.”
The creative process
“The book was designed by Rachana Devidayal Shah, who created beautiful layouts and enhanced the visual storytelling. Rachana included our moodbooks, quirky drawings and process photos through subtle layering.
Our USP is multidimensional. We create theme-based collections, develop specialised fabric for bespoke labels, work with interior architects on wall textiles, and host textile talks and tours to share our process, along with supporting and running social welfare initiatives for our community through the Ahilya Community Service Club. It is the culmination of these twenty-one threads that brings our journey alive!
Banoo Batliboi, who creates gorgeous book sculptures, guided me through the narrative and helped edit the text.”
Empowering the grassroots
“Community empowerment is critical at every level. We empower through our design process. Our weaving team participates with us right from the concept, through the sampling process and then, of course, through production. Each member is very proud of the Amba label as they feel our textiles (and the story they tell) are unique in our weaving community. We have year-end meetings where we share all of our technical learnings from our collections and also from our fabric design development which we do for other bespoke labels.
Thread XVII, ‘Balancing the Pindas’, touches upon my involvement in the two established organisations of Maheshwar, Rehwa Society and WomenWeave. It is through my interactions with both of these brands that I have been able to bring transparent practices to our micro label.”
To request a copy, directly message on Instagram @ambaweave
Photos by AmbaWeave