Aqua threads for Nicole (Kidman)!

Q&A: Rahul Jain & Gunjan Arora, Fashion designers

Designers Rahul Jain and Gunjan Arora have evolved a unique technique in fabric creation where the thread is the brush. They tell Anoothi Vishal about their show in Melbourne.

So what is "Wearable Art"?
As you know, we've been working in fabric felting for a while now. We have evolved a technique in fabric creation that we've patented, where the thread takes the form of the brush and the canvas of a plastic foil melts away when each inch of its surface is replaced with silk threads that follow a pattern.

With this technique, we have now created a new series called "Wearable Art". There are four lines of our art in the series, each celebrating a perception, an emotion or a thought. We did 17 pieces for Australia; they were all pre-sold out.

Then the art is all yours...not reproductions?
We make our own patterns; it's our sensibilities and once we create a piece, it cannot be replicated "" even by us.

How did you develop this idea?
We were sitting one day and Gunjan noticed how the threads fell on the floor "" in a lovely pattern. That's art, we thought... Now, we are reinventing anything that you can design.

In fact, we just don't limit the concept to clothes. Recently, we did a 10 feet-long scroll, felted inch by inch, which told the life of an Indian woman in a fairytale format.

Where and why were you showing in Australia?
We were the only Indian designers invited to be part of a charity show for the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. People only know the Rohit Bals and the Tarun Tahilianis. But the Aussies loved our work. They'd never seen anything like ours before.

They loved the fact that all our fabric was handmade with layers and layers of thread, and that everything was natural thread and dye. Three million dollars were raised in charity there. One of our sarees fetched $9,000 and the lady who bought it said that she'd especially learn to drape it.

I believe Nicole Kidman modelled your outfit...

Yes! And the outfit that she wore, a sherwani jacket that we had created specially for her, was auctioned off for $10,000. We are now making a blue coloured outfit for her.

We sell in Europe and America abroad. And even Sean Connery has picked up some stuff from our furnishings line where we use the same technique. We are proud to be Indians and show the world...