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  I am not a follower of any fashion trends. Not that it matters. I have always followed my heart, with an eye on my purse.   Over the weekend I could see a war had erupted on social media and at the receiving end was a super popular Indian designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee. I first thought it was about the models or the photos he had used. Or the multiple magazine covers that featured his new range. Never mind, that would hardly ever get any storm of opinions against. The opposition is not towards the designs or models but about a commercial deal, I learnt later. Furore was over his tie up with global brand H&M and daring to bring it down to aam janta through online platforms like Myntra and price it “affordable”. I follow him, Anita Dongre among the few designers just as a curious news person than a fashion follower. I have never stepped into any of their stores. Honestly, I can’t afford. I hated Sabyasachi when he took the Kanjivaram sarees, fully woven, complete pieces,...

  Kalamkari’s problem of plenty  Copies, fakes, imitations may be inevitable part of life. But, in the field of art the disruptions created by imitations have a long term impact. More the merrier, but not in the case of screen printing or block prints imitating the hand drawn pen kalamkaris. Srikalahasti’s pen kalamkari, the hand drawn, hand filled paints on fabrics has been flourishing having been resurrected twice in the last century. First the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya’s art revival lifted it out of extinction in the 1950s, and later in the century when it moved out of being a wall art to adorning the sarees and later fabrics. Today it is a problem of plenty for Kalamkari. There are many trained artists involved in the craft at Srikalahasti, a small town around 40 kilometers from Tirupati on the banks of river Swarnamukhi. Business has been good, visibility as good as it can ever be, but threatened by the fake printed version that has proliferated from the oth...