India Sutra: On The Magic Trail Of Textiles

Berenice Ellena has worked as a clothes and costume designer in Paris, Venice, Delhi and Srinagar. She has taught the history of costume, and has also organized various exhibitions in French museums as designer and curator. Supported by Hermes, she spent some years researching textiles all around India. Her writings and photos originate from her meetings with craftspeople, textile technicians, poets and Indian scholars. Her work depicts a living art endangered by modernity.

Back Of The Book

India Sutra is a tribute to the skills of Indian craftsmen, and offers a discovery of textile routes in today's India. In revote villages, ancestral techniques help create countless varieties of fabrics adorned with symbolic designs, embroidery or by precious vegetable dyes. In this universe where all embellishment techniques continue to exist side by side, beauty itself lies in the heart of the workshops where day after day the canvas of the future is woven with fervour.

This book is a tool for designers and textile lovers, presenting all types of weaves and decorative techniques. It leads the reader from the material and reality towards myth and ritual, and yet presents the advantages of a practical guidebook. It includes reliable maps, a comprehensive address book, and as such is an excellent vademecum for textile adventurers outside and all around India.