Archive of a Print: Sienna
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
Introduced 2024. Pure silk, digitally printed. The starting point for Sienna is the Kachchh cross-stitch: an ivory ground ruled into a grid, each box holding a single worked cross, interrupted by a banded geometric-style chevron panel running through the print like a woven border sewn into the cloth, the grid keeps the slight irregularity of handwork, so the pattern reads as stitched rather than plotted.
Colourway: Deep navy, ivory, and ochre. Sienna and deep navy panels.
Fabric: Pure silk. Lightweight, fluid, with natural lustre that enhances the depth of the printed colours.
I wanted to take something that felt traditional and make it into something modern, contemporary, and cosmopolitan. The Sienna print is that. I began researching textiles from Gujarat, looking to what I had in my own collection. As well as beyond, to the holdings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Both of which have incredible archives of Indian textiles, that fortunately for me, are digitised.
Gujarat is an interesting starting point, Kachchh in particular, the desert lends itself to an earthy palette, dark colours and beiges and sand-tones. I began to sketch, and came to the Sienna print. It is earthy and grounded, and the panelling and body prints are evocative of a desert landscape.
My starting point for any design is to visualise it as a kaftan, to think about not just the print, but also the body and the cut. Once I have the kaftan, I can think about the print in terms of its more streamlined and narrow counterpart: the silk stole.
After I finalise the stole, I source the wool for the wool-backed stole. I always work with wool shawls from Kashmir. I am drawn to the chashme-bulbul weave, which is a particular intricate diamond weave, that is used in Kashmiri textiles.
Chashme-bulbul translated into English, means the "eye of the nightingale". The design creates a beautiful, repetitive geometric texture with a subtle sheen. The weave acknowledges my Kashmiri heritage and situates my design practice within the Kashmiri design sensibility. Importantly also, chashme-bulbul as a weave is only available on pashmina and very fine wool. In this way, the weave situates both my design traditions, as well as the emphasis on quality that I want my designs to demonstrate.
The 'Golden Hour' necklaces, a limited series of Himalayan adornment, pair perfectly with the Sienna print. Strands of hand-strung semi-precious stones: citrine, smoky quartz, lapis lazuli, labradorite and pearl, create a palette that runs parallel to Sienna itself: honeyed golds and ambers against deep navy and slate, with lapis surfacing here and there like the print's own cobalt cross. Worn against the silk, the stones catch the same warmth the print is drawn in, it is amber against ivory, navy against gold, and the two feel like one idea, carried across mediums, from cloth into stone.
Shop Sienna and Complementary Designs:
Sonya Sapru Designs Pattern Books
I love pattern books, and I love researching pattern books as a genre. In our blog post titled, 'The Archive: Print and Process' I presented some images from pattern books that I refer to often. The image below is of a pattern book that I did not refer to in that post. I came across it recently, and have enjoyed seeing the different stitches and materials that makers were documenting. What I find interesting about this process is how pattern books are adapted to the contemporary moment. These blog posts build the Sonya Sapru Designs pattern book, and I am enjoying sharing it with you all.
