Sanjay Garg, the man behind distinctive boutique handloom brand Raw Mango

Raw Mango completes 10 years, its unique aesthetic now widely loved

Inside Angoori Badi in New Delhi’s Chhattarpur, marked by “farmhouses” in which reside some of the city’s most wealthy, folk fusion music plays at a muted volume. Wispy, off-white muslin curtains divide a section where the bold colours of zari saris twinkle under discreet yellow lighting. An off-white divan and a low wooden table form the central space to sift through shortlisted apparel. On the table lies a metal bowl filled with mogra flowers. Loyalists will recognise this aesthetic as being distinctively Raw Mango, a niche handloom brand founded by designer Sanjay Garg. And, in the 10 years since it was founded, Raw Mango has built a very loyal set of customers indeed.

After wrapping up a meeting, Garg descends the steps to the main studio. He walks without the faintly sardonic air that many mainstream designers seem to sport. Dressed in plain trousers and a loose shirt, he greets me without fanfare or the obligatory bevy of interns wielding notepads. His unassuming demeanour might owe to his childhood in Mubarakpur, a village in Rajasthan. “Many people ask me why I wanted to work with handloom and I have no simple answer. You could say that I liked working with my hands, or perhaps because I come from a village and have seen that life closely,” says the 38-year-old. “Handloom isn’t exotic or exclusive in places of its origin. There, it’s just a way of life.” 

Garg’s grandfather owned a provisions store and his father worked as a supplier of seeds for chemical fertilisers. “Till I was 22, there was not even a car in my village. But life was very contented. I didn’t grow up feeling I had a difficult life.” His parents, two siblings and three dogs now live with him in the house next door to Angoori Badi. So far, he says, he has been able to resist the pressure to get married. Design is his life.

A serendipitous meeting led Garg towards the world of textiles and weaving. He met a cousin who was studying design while he was working towards a master’s degree in commerce. It was the first time, Garg says, that his mind encountered the possibility of a career in design. “My parents wanted me to become a chartered accountant,” he laughs.

He abandoned his master’s for a short course at the Indian Institute of Crafts and Design in Jaipur and later enrolled  full-time at the National Institute of Fashion Technology in Delhi. Soon after, he began working with Shades of India, a boutique textile company. After this, Garg worked with Chanderi weavers in Madhya Pradesh, under a Ministry of Textiles-led cluster development programme. This was a turning point: Garg decided to continue working with the weavers long after the project ended. “I have always considered the role of design to be one that solves problems. And I wondered if it could help fix the weaving community,” he explains.

His work with the weavers eventually led him to establish Raw Mango in September 2008, a brand that was unique at the time for working solely with handloom. No longer, of course; several brands and designers now feature a more heritage-driven aesthetic. Celebrities at weddings, Diwali parties and international film festivals flaunt Raw Mango saris and outfits by Sanjay Garg, his label for stitched apparel. Raw Mango’s own rooted-yet-contemporary outlook has helped its popularity with an audience that is not merely wealthy but aesthetically discerning. And, of course, its price point — saris are priced between Rs 5,000 and Rs 125,000 — makes Raw Mango just within reach and yet not cheap enough to lose its exclusivity.

This is where Garg’s own entrepreneurial acumen comes into play. “To be able to sustain a brand beyond the designer’s own personality is a challenge that most Indian design houses face. Famous brands abroad have been successful because they made money and they have resources to bring in new blood,” he says. But what of the weavers, the artisans who create the saris? Do the happy effects of this entrepreneurship trickle down to them? “One has to look at this as a business rather than something running on sympathy and emotion,” he says. Besides, he says, there is just a handful designers in India compared to the number of weavers (weaving is the second-largest employer in India after farming). “Handloom is ailing because of our changing times, the impracticality of wearing a heavy sari or the fact that handloom is not seen as a fabric of the future,” he explains. “Design, innovation and branding are the only things that can bridge this gap. You would be killing the messenger if you took the designer out of the equation.”

In an industry that works largely on an unspoken system of upper-class back-slapping and patronage, it is unusual to hear Garg say that his weavers are his mentors. He researches by travelling extensively to all corners of the country before developing and finalising a motif. His research methodology also includes a pet indulgence — collecting old handloom saris and material. “There are people in smaller towns who buy old saris and sell it to me. It’s an organic network that has grown over the years,” he says. These pieces of old handloom then act as a template, both for him as a designer and for the weaver to understand and replicate. “An old sari or textile also acts as a bank for a specific skill set, a weaving tradition and a historic motif,” he says. His friends, Garg says, tease him about his love for old textiles and plants. “Buying these offers a greater sense of achievement for me than, say, buying a car or a house,” he says simply. His disciplined approach to finding such gems has led to the creation of an extensive archive, a piece from which has been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. London’s Victoria and Albert Museum owns a few of Garg’s own creations.

Garg believes he has been greatly influenced and inspired by the work of a host of textile enthusiasts in the country — from the late Martand Singh to textile historian Rahul Jain and Dastkar’s Laila Tyabji. His close friendship with Anita Lal, lifestyle boutique Good Earth’s founder and creative director, has also been an aesthetic inspiration. Lal stumbled upon Garg’s collection at a Dastkar exhibition. Since then, the two have shared a common design language as well as a desire to work closely and directly with weaver and artisan communities. “If you have talent, vision and courage, and have a clear understanding of your roots — and Sanjay has all of those — it doesn’t matter where you are. People will see that there is something special,” says Lal. Their offices are both inside farmhouses in Chhattarpur and to a first-time visitor, both look near-identical in terms of the subtle tones and general air of understatement. Good Earth hosted a baithak at its Tulsi Farm office to mark the beginning of Garg’s 10th year in the industry.

Has he found a way to sustain his brand, his design sensibility and Raw Mango’s aesthetic outside of himself? “I want to, but I’m still figuring out how to do that,” grins Garg. Perhaps the next decade will hold the answers.