Mundane is the muse

Dirty laundry, dish drainers, detergents and skull caps inspire three designers to reinvent style and make the banal fashionable

How inspiring can doing dishes and washing dirty laundry be? Quite a bit, if you ask Mumbai-based sisters Tina and Nikita Sutradhar whose line, ‘Mundane Things’, is inspired by the vivid hues of detergents (red, blue, pink and white) and the layering in piled-up laundry.

The idea stuck them while they were studying at the London College of Fashion. “We had to do the household chores ourselves. Doing the laundry and the dishes sparked an idea and gave us our edgy cuts,” says Tina of the label Miuniku — Miu is Tina’s pet name and Niku comes from Nikita. The result was their autumn-winter line — inventive wool and flap coats and jersey dresses — conceived and executed in London. Their laundry basket, bathrobe and shower curtain-inspired line, which saw the plastic dish drainer being used as a motif for the first time in the history of fashion, put them on the shortlist for the Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) Young Designer Award. “We wanted to be able to make ordinary things, which most people would simply ignore, avant-garde,” says Tina.

An Aneeth Arora creation

The other torchbearers of this trend are Aneeth Arora and Hyderabad-based Vogue Fashion Fund winner Archana Rao. A Parsons’ College of Fashion graduate known for her luscious drapes, Rao of the label Frou Frou used the metaphor of a ‘A Clothes Line’ as the name of her collection to show how diverse dressing can be in a family. “I used to watch how clothes were dried on a line at home and this proved to be an ebullient way to mirror how diverse our tastes in clothing are — from the head of a family, the father, to his two kids — and yet how there exists an undeniable connection,” says Rao.

Checks seen on bedcovers and menswear fabrics were used on her natty dresses, and the dainty florals found on handkerchiefs and rose motifs were transferred onto skirts to make an unusual style statement. “It is back to the basics in fashion. I have always liked to mix patterns and prints that I do not get from any stylebook or international style guru. I draw from what I see around me in life,” she says.

Arora too loves simplicity and has worked tirelessly with ikats, checks, bandhini and jamevars. She has found favour with filmmaker Mira Nair, writer-activist Arundhati Roy and actor Kate Hudson. While travelling to Lucknow, this petite designer was charmed by the checked lungis and crocheted skull caps worn by men whom she spotted outside a mosque. She promptly jotted a ‘style note’ in her little black book. “I like facile people and how beautifully they live their lives with such grace, dignity and a spark of hope, despite limited means,” she says.

An Aneeth Arora creation

Arora says that when she did a line inspired by patchwork, she was repeatedly told that it looked like “beggar chic” and that’s why rustic has become her middle name. “In the West, many stylists call my line ‘scruffy’ and ‘dilapidated’, but I don’t get offended by it. I do not aim to dress fashionistas,” she says. “Fashion must blur the lines of elitism and reflect what truly touches us all — which is the simple things in life.”

The ‘mundane’ collections are available at multi-designer stores across India and are priced between Rs 9,000 and Rs 25,000.