She has woven her present collection around the six-yard wonder. In her attempt to globalise it, she has attempted blending it with jeans and other western clothing.
Nida’s collection entitled, High on Chai at Collage, her autumn winter collection, is
a dedication to street images and the essence of street India. It is proof of how the mundane and ordinary can be transformed into a piece of art.
The garments in the collection ranged from green patent leather high waist pants to crow and graffiti print skirts, kafthan dresses, yellow orgamic bags and scarves to elegantly paneled sarees with hand embroidery, brocade patches and origami flower blouses.
“With recession taking its toll on people, companies effecting cost cutting measures, the very basic simple things tend to matter a great deal. My collection tends to glorify recession in a way and attempts to harmonise it with the disjointed,” explains Nida.
For instance, Nida induces fashion and usability into mundane materials such as tarpaulin. She has woven a bag from it and designed clothes as well. The collection is an ode to this Kitsch India where chai is being used as a metaphor for being “high on life.”
Another one of Nida’s collection titled, New India Bioscope Co. is an (ad)venture founded by Nida and Raul Chandra. They draw inspiration from the quirks and vibrancy of
Indian streets.
The people, faces, dialogues, conversations, walls and shops, chai stalls, posters, hoardings, songs, dances, rickshaws, crows and cows of Indian multi-hued ethos are all lead characters in the collection.
The present collection is pegged on the drama of Bollywood. It revolves around the authentic art form of poster painting which went obsolete 15 years ago. “I have roped in poster painters, who are almost out of circulation and have got them to reinvent the art in a more modern context. The flamboyant and dramatic imagery of hand painted
Bollywood posters and hoardings has been captured in a kitsch flavour inundated with surrealistically treated images from the films of the 70s and 80s splashed with a riot of colour and concepts,” says Nida and adds, “We have two distinct lines-the first is the affordable art line which are reprints of my original art and the second exclusive line is the Collectors' line comprising hand-painted art works of some of my original works rendered by these artists. The profit from the sales of original works of the artists would go to the poster artistes who we are collaborating with.”
Through her work, Nida hopes to rediscover and reinvent a vanished art form by
rehabilitating and collaborating with those poster artists who were forced out of their art and livelihood because of the advent of modern day technology.
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