Jaipur's new Nila House offers safe haven to struggling textile traditions

The newly launched Nila House in Jaipur offers safe haven to India's staggering but struggling textile traditions

Somewhere along India’s journey to industrialisation, indigenous arts and crafts moved from the functional to the aesthetic. While organic cotton surrendered to cheaper, readily available and industrially manufactured cloth, ancient natural dyes like indigo were drowned out by the riot of synthetic colours. Nila House in Jaipur, which was unveiled a few days ago, aims to turn back this particular wheel.

The refurbished bungalow from the 1940s has space for both the production and sale of handmade textiles. It has been restored by renowned architect Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai, using locally sourced natural materials such as lime plaster and local marble. While preserving the surrounding flora and fauna, the bungalow seeks to be an environmentally friendly homage to Jaipur’s staggering crafts heritage. 

It will operate as a sustainable base, complete with library and courtyard, allowing various weaving techniques, weavers, students, customers, curious art and crafts lovers to come together in an intimate space that resembles a traditional Indian home. Apart from being a complete supply-chain in itself, Nila House will be a repository of knowledge about natural dyes and handmade textiles. At the moment, it has three in-house artisans and talks with multiple artists and designers who would like to make use of this space are underway. 

“We plan to bring on board 5,000 weavers from states like Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh in the next three years,” says Anuradha Singh, Head, Nila House. Singh has been in the business of crafts, art and most recently, art management. Having worked on multi-arts centres such as the Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, Singh is hopeful of integrating crafts with communities, not only as an ode to the past but also as a sustainable venture. 

As chemical dyes and mechanical processes have resulted in environmental degradation, Singh describes Nila House as an attempt to "go back to the soil". "Textile should be able to move from being a handmade kurta, to a patch in a hand-woven quilt to a strap on a handmade bag and eventually down to the soil," explains Singh. To illustrate this objective, the inaugural collection on display is the work of UK-based designer Anna Valentine, which celebrates indigo, India’s oldest natural dye, with a 4,000-year-old legacy.

Nila collection white jamdhani

The idea of creating a space like Nila House was conceived by the Lady Bamford Foundation, a not-for-proft organisation that was established in 2013 as the CSR initiative of JCB India. The organisation primarily works towards the revival and promotion of traditional indigo, natural dye and the handloom sector of India. And so, in order to support artisans and rural communities, Nila House came into being as a space that can help promote and develop traditional arts and handicrafts. Carole Bamford, for whom the organisation is named says, "My relationship with India goes back over forty years and in that time I have developed a deep love and appreciation for the country, its people and the richness of Indian handmade traditions.” Nila House then, is also one of her ways of giving back to the people, traditions and techniques that have enriched her artistic understanding. 

The presence of neel (indigo) in Nila House is important as it plans to support and develop local artisans to set a new standard for sustainable design practices across India. It seeks to provide creative and viable solutions to reintegrating natural dyes and traditional crafts into the production process. Indigo is a natural starting point for the appropriately named Nila House.