Sanjay Garg’s ‘Once Upon a River’ is a surreal outing

Three men locomotion retired of a mist-covered forest, an eerie vocalisation keeping gait with their steps. Behind them are shadows. More people? A baraat? The surreal representation cuts to a groom connected a achromatic equine wandering on colonnaded corridors, disappearing into the mist, adjacent arsenic a bride with kohl-lined eyes emerges, an ululating chitter heightening the mood.

Once Upon a River plays retired similar a fever dream. Yes, it’s a wedding-focused collection, but done the Raw Mango way. Because, arsenic its laminitis decorator Sanjay Garg puts it, the marque “is not defined by a azygous thought oregon aesthetic, but alternatively a changeless questioning”. Here, the thought helium chooses to question is that of unions, of coming together. “The Indian wedding is ever bigger than the 2 radical astatine the centre of it. The solemnisation is simply a national of families, thought processes, rituals and symbols,” helium says.

The run changeable by Ashish Shah, a Raw Mango loyalist, unfolds successful a surreal, dreamlike sequence: a exemplary decked successful reddish and flanked by expressionless men looks unflinchingly astatine the camera; different wrapped similar a mummy successful golden brocade wears an ornate chapeau topped with a handcrafted bird; a pistillate balances predatorily implicit a man; and a sightless equine is held aloft successful boats lit by flaming torches.

Motifs of the fish, equine and vertebrate — handcrafted by Manan Sharma, a Delhi-based artist, from papier mâché, textile and metallic structures — recur passim the campaign. “We’ve touched connected surrealism before. Somewhere, it requires you to spot successful the ideas that originate successful the subconscious mind,” shares Garg. “The bird, equine and food tin correspond the worlds of the sky, the onshore and the sea. Each has a spot successful this story, and comes unneurotic successful astonishing ways.”

Santrampur diaries

This fluidity of unions spills into the surroundings, too. The run was filmed astatine Santrampur palace and, arsenic Garg points out, it is not a specified backdrop. “I americium from Rajasthan, which is possibly wherefore I’m drawn to palaces and the past down them. I learned astir the legacies of Gujarati palaces recently, and Santrampur successful peculiar is truthful unique.”

Located astatine the confluence of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, its facade echoes the histories and architecture of the 3 states and its cultures. Art Deco inspirations besides marque themselves known. “The residential palace is built connected a backstage lake. And the water comes wrong the courtyard, truthful you ne'er person to permission the location to beryllium with the water. It was fitting for a communicative astir unions,” helium says. After all, h2o threads done it each — arsenic rivers of zari crossed the brocade and a flood of stories linking the past and the present.

The textiles make links too, drafting from archives crossed centuries: from Ashavali and Varanasi brocade to velvets from the Ottoman empire, and adjacent architectural inlay work. “The taxable of unions seems opportune fixed that we are successful a clip erstwhile things astir america look fragmented. But it is simply a broader thought of romance, 1 that envelops everyone and everything,” says Garg. “The stream is conscionable the metaphorical mounting for this communicative of union.”

Engineering Varanasi brocade

While the postulation builds connected the designer’s involvement successful storytelling and layering, the surrealism is not an afterthought. It is informed by the method aspects of the collection. The mode the Varanasi brocades person been created, helium says, inspired the thought of a communicative that takes spot betwixt the imagined and the real. “In this collection, we engineered our Varanasi silk brocades for zardozi embroidery, successful a coming unneurotic of bunai [weaving] and kadhai [embroidery], 2 traditionally autarkic crafts. We had to ideate wherever the embroidery would fall, permission abstraction for it successful the weave, and past integrate it successful the aboveground ornamentation process. That itself informed the process.”

Raw Mango garments person ever favoured weightless ornamentation, utilizing caller motifs and techniques wrong the weave. Each of their collections successful the past decennary has presented a caller position connected craft. In Playground, they shared a playful imaginativeness of mashru. With Lahariya, they adapted the ocular vocabulary of accepted turbans to make celebratory textiles — layering colours and the tie-dye technique. In Agama, Garg introduced ikat mashru into their language. And with Children of the Night, the pallu became the blouse and they wove brocade with lycra successful an effort to ideate what a knit mightiness look similar if made connected the handloom.

“But successful Once Upon a River, aboveground ornamentation plays a much salient role,” helium states. “The tactile embroidery connected brocades imparts a much ornate feeling.” The fluid silhouettes tin beryllium adapted to whoever whitethorn privation to deterioration it because, arsenic Garg emphasises, conscionable arsenic relationships, each is unsocial and ever-evolving.