Forward Push Play
Urban pop culture rarely looks more vibrant than in the amusing accessories at the alternate design store Play Clan, discovers Neha Bhatt.
One Monday morning, we decided to play. A trippy day with meanderings and moods, rebellious outbursts and runaway ideas. A Play world was born. As ideas proliferated like viruses, an entirely new world was imagined.
A world where play was work and work was play” — and what followed was a Clan; a Clan which comprised of clones; clones who are people with similar differences, as deviant as they are nuts, as shy as they are stylish, and as mute as they are spontaneous.
That’s Play Clan for you — a place that we spotted tucked away rather quietly in one of those glassy malls in the capital city; experimental, alternative and what-have-you.
In a small space in the huge Select City Mall in Saket, Delhi, this 250 sq ft store takes off from where graphic novels landed. A product of Illum Designs — a firm that is branding for the upcoming Fall/Winter Wills Lifestyle Fashion Week in the city — it takes this small-scale retail segment as an experiment more than a commercial enterprise.
Eccentricities that found expression in ink and paper in the form of illustrations and dialogue in graphic novels spill onto every accessory you could possibly imagine. And it’s art that we can recognise effortlessly — the madness of our cities, urban pop culture, ethnicity, age-old icons and symbols of everyday life.
So you have your sadhu from Varanasi on a colourful mug — with the ghats of the Ganga and flashes of the holy city illustrated intricately all over his body, or a DTC (Dheeli Transport Corporation, in their vocabulary) bus as an illustration in a 17”x17” frame, or even an autorickshaw coloured in with letterings that spell — much to your amusement — “Taxi no. 9211”, “CNG” and “Roses are red, violets are blue”. The evergreen chai glass cups are iconised, as is the rustic metal kettle.
Their apparel (T-shirts and shirts) capture a larger picture, with the “typical” Indian family of four (“Hum do hamare do”) sharing a Bajaj scooter on a T-shirt, or even a congested part of Old Delhi on Independence Day, peppered with kites flying high. Oh, and there’s also your Rajinikanth posing with his bike, “Superstar” embroidered large — referring to man and bike both, of course.
You also have the towering skyscrapers of Mumbai and Victoria Terminus in many frames and cushion covers, the Rashtrapati Bhavan on other curios and snatches of Kolkata here and there. There is little that won’t please in this store, for care has been taken to stay politically correct and not play with religious or political inclinations, and be at the same time humorous while striking a chord with every urban Indian.
At first glance, what may not be so evident is explained by Himanshu Dogra, who started Illum Designs in 2001, and opened the first of Play Clan retail a year and a half ago. “We work with themes that change every two months. Our current theme is images of India, across cities and sections. Before this we were working on the Sadhu theme, because he’s such an important man of our times! We are now introducing a theme on Saraswati, called Hey Bhagwan,” he says.
Coasters with illustrations of the goddess have a little story written at the back — a branding style they follow across their line of accessories. “We create a story, and find different platforms to express each of them. So we also carry a small little writeup on the theme at the back of every product,” he explains.
While a bunch of their products are also available at select outlets — Kimaya and Malini Ramani’s store in Goa, for example — it is in this small space that Dogra insists the Clan shows best. “The way we have designed this place gels with the idea behind Play Clan. We wanted it to be as graphic as possible. The yellow wall and illustrations of the clones represent you and me, in a manner of expression, holding forth the green cause, while the hollow tunnels that showcase the hand-painted shoes stand out amongst the rest. We have also displayed the pillows and frames to give it a certain feel.”
The end of the store is a fully mirrored wall, giving the store a sense of spaciousness. It’s a compact space, and open glass cabinets hold smaller items like badges, colourful illustrated journals, coffee mugs, coasters and DVD holders. Pricing has been kept moderate, says Dogra, from Rs 260 upwards, so that it’s affordable for everyone.
Play Clan’s flagship store is at Select CityWalk in Delhi, but there are two more, one open at The Garden of Five Senses, and another forthcoming at Mumbai. Despite the rapid expansion, Dogra wants to take it easy.
“Our production is small-scale because we also want to maintain a sense of exclusivity and keep it personal. More than one-time store visits, we have people coming back because we are constantly playing with ideas and creating new stories.” It’s by the Clan, for the Clan.