Asif Shaikh: The embroidery-wala, who took on the mighty designer

Sometimes a weakness can turn into your biggest strength. A physically weak child with low immunity, Asif Shaikh couldn’t get up to the normal games children played in his colony and often spent hours in his Ahmedabad home balcony watching other children while cursing his own fate.

But as he sat there, he also noticed the birds and butterflies and the beauty of the world around him and at the age of 7, Shaikh began to embroider on his own. He says his innermost desire was to “fly like the butterflies he saw” but he managed to give wings to his fantasy on a piece of cloth, with needle and thread. Many family elders would taunt and tell his mother to stop him from doing “women’s work” but she stoically maintained that her son, denied the usual pleasures of childhood, could indulge in whatever he wished.

In that balcony, Asif the “embroidery-wala” was born. From the age of 7 to 18, Shaikh started making pencil drawings and developed many new stiches and became an artist in his own right.  In 1991, he got admission in the School of Planning and Architecture for a part time course in interior design. But in his final year, he found he was missing his embroidery work and started a studio from home.

It was during these years that he ended up doing some work for one of the better-known designers in India who published his embroidery in a book but gave him no credit for it. Asif began to get wary of the mighty designer, who he noticed often passed off artisan’s work for their own and were hesitant to share credit. By 2002, he decided he’d sell his own work under his own label “Asif”.

Meanwhile, he started travelling around the country meeting artisans and enhancing his own learning of ancient Indian textile and craft, right from weaving, dyeing, printing, tie and dye to different embroidery styles. “Anything that could be done with fabric I wanted to learn and absorb”, explains he. He had also begun to take a deeper dive into revival of the dying art and craft forms and ways to keep old techniques and handiwork alive.

By 2008, Asif had absorbed enough to begin sharing his knowledge with the rest of the world. He started speaking about Indian textiles, their uniqueness and the need to preserve ancient handwork techniques at workshops and seminars held all over. In 2010, he found himself in the US at the Santa Fe Folk Art Festival held every July in New Mexico, an eye opener for him in more ways than one. But above all what he noticed is how much importance the craft and the artisan was given at the festival. He’d found a platform where the artisan received work, money and above all recognition, unlike in India where the artisan was practically invisible. 

In 2015, the Victoria and Albert museum in London held an exhibition on the Fabrics of India, a show that displayed over 200 pieces of ancient Indian handmade textiles, dating back to the 3rd century. 

Here the label of one of the items on display caught Asif’s eye : a jacket by a renowned Indian designer that claimed it was “digitally printed ajrakh” with skull motifs. This to Asif’s mind was “blasphemous”. One, ajrakh was a block printing technique done by hand with vegetable dyes so “digitally printed ajrakh” represented a failure to respect the tradition. Moreover, skull motifs were against the very grain of Islam beliefs that is why the designer could not convince any artisan to create these. He brought many members of ajrakh artisans and its association together and they objected to the label and even sent a letter to the authorities at the London museum. 

Meanwhile, Asif himself was getting increasingly unpopular with the designer community who derisively referred to him as the “embroidery-wala”. He too was getting 

disenchanted with the garments and fashion industry and was working increasingly on research and revival of textiles. 

In 2013, Asif brought all his years of knowledge and learning together to curate “Resurgence”, a not for sale exhibition of the best and most exquisite embroidery and textiles embellished with every possible hand embroidery style like aari, zardozi, marodi, vasali, danka, gota pati, kamdani (metal embroidery), chikankari, parsi, soof, mutwa, rabari and kantha. Each embroidery style was meticulously documented, supported by samples with detailed descriptions, images and encapsulating the range of tools used in its creation. Moreover, every exhibit displayed names of the artisans who specialize in the techniques, thereby introducing them to the outside world. The exhibition has since turned into a permanent travelling show that has been to six locations, including Santa Fe. 

Simultaneously, his own work and innovative techniques were getting more recognition and praise. In 2015, he introduced real “kasab” gold thread once again in Indian embroidery. He also used beetle wings for embellishing special pieces of embroidery woven from peacock feathers, designs that he argues come to him in his dreams. Prior to this, he also redesigned the “karchob or the scroll frame” on which embroidery was traditionally done. His innovation was widely adapted making artisans work easier and less time consuming.

But the lack of recognition for artisans and the creator of the craft as a community continued to rankle him. He continued to speak and lobby with anyone willing to listen for artisans to be given their due. By 2015, Asif’s voice had found resonance with many others and he was joined by others to help organize the first Walking Hand-in-Hand fashion show held in 2016 at NID, Ahmedabad, a show where the producer of the fabric walked the ramp with the designer, a first of its kind in India.

The following year in 2017, he along with Villoo Mirza, a Baroda art school alumni, who has spent her career promoting artisans and established NIFT, Gujarat joined hands with Asif to set up the Craft + Design + Society (the CDS foundation), a foundation that aims to take handcrafted Indian textiles to the world, keeping the unnamed creator of the fabric at the heart of the initiative. On the board is also Radhikaraje Gaekwad of the Baroda royal family who is working on reviving the lost weaving techniques of chanderi, among other pursuits.

Slowly but surely Asif’s crusade has found more resonance with the designer community as well and Walking Hand-in-Hand has now become a regular feature on India’s fashion scene – the latest edition (5th) was held in the capital’s Sundar nursery last month where many artisans and weavers participated and walked hand-in-hand with the designer. It may be a small step in bringing the artisan into the limelight but if Asif and Co. can help it, it’s just the beginning of a long journey.