Texicon
A lexicon for textiles — how about that?
2024
Independent Project
Guided by
Amit Kalra
Anke Stohlmann
What started as a quest to document Indian textiles became a project to document all textiles.
Skip to the TL;DR version
How did it all start?
While growing up in India, my mother instilled a deep sense of value and love for Indian textiles. When I moved to the US, I started exploring my relationship with Indian textiles outside of home.​
Quickly, I realized that several people had their notions of Indians based on how the community was portrayed in TV shows and movies. Or was influenced by how fashion houses frequently culturally appropriated Indian textiles without acknowledging their origins. This drove my research and I was looking at ways to make Indian textiles more commonplace/known and therefore, accepted outside of India. The real process started with framing the context:
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Stills from movies, shows, and fashion shows which show/represent/have been derived from
Indian textile culture. All the images above link to their source material and have been used
for representative, educational purposes only.
1.
How are Indian textiles represented in mainstream media & by fashion houses?
2.
What does the community have to say about these types of representations?
3.
Does representation matter?
4.
Does nuance in representation matter?
5.
Will nuance help with building awareness about Indian textiles?
After setting the context for my inquiry – I narrowed down my audience: people of Indian origin and set out to explore their relationship with Indian textiles and representation. I wanted to understand how their identities were tied / or not tied to presumable identifiers of their origin i.e. Indian textiles.
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People
Interviewed
Cultural
Probes
No. of people
tested with
The overwhelming insight that I got through the process was that Indians in the diaspora were uncomfortable with wearing Indian textiles outside of India/their safe spaces.
Physically, it wasn't conducive to the harsh winter conditions typically seen in North America or Europe. Emotionally, they experienced discomfort because the act of wearing Indian textiles invited pointed stares or unwelcome observations.
An additional layer of context to the qualitative research was the larger theme that the representation of Indians within mainstream Western media fit tropes and stereotypes that were harmful or inaccurate. These tropes became evident through the Indian textiles used within a frame — whether on the characters or in the background. Based on this, I created an empathy map and drew 4 archetypes to further my research along.
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An aggregated empathy map featuring (in clockwise direction), the participants'
words, thoughts, feelings and actions.
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Archetypes formed based on the interviews. I picked the Angry archetype
as the user to design solutions for.
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The Angry archetype
How might we make
Indian textiles more known and, therefore, reduce the awkwardness associated with wearing them outside India and other safe spaces?
1.
​Creating winterwear such as reversible down jackets with Indian textile prints or motifs.
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Pain Points:
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Feeling cold while wearing a cotton salwar kameez (a traditional form of a South Asian outfit); AND
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People saying “It’s an interesting outfit” tends to make the wearer uncomfortable.
How Might We make traditional Indian garments more weather conducive?
Brief: Creating a puffer jacket to match Indian textile/garment silhouettes
for extreme weather.
Why it didn’t work:​
2.
Creating a platform that reassures Indians wearing traditional silhouettes outside of India and has a safety function in place to report or address any adverse experience.
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Pain Points:
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Adverse comments and pointed stares while wearing Indian clothes.
How Might We ensure Indians take space and wear Indian textiles overseas despite adverse reactions?
Brief:
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Having an app that gives you reassuring messages; OR
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Policy-level intervention is needed to increase awareness about Indian textiles.
Why it didn’t work:​
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App could be potentially misused.
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Safety apps already exist and take away from the behavior that requires modification.
3.
Starting a partnership with big box retailers in North America to sell Indian garments.​
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Pain Points:
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Comments like “It’s so interesting and colorful” tend to sound performative and make the wearer uncomfortable; and
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Wearing a saree in public spaces is a physically uncomfortable experience.
How Might We ensure that wearing Indian textiles is a physically comfortable experience in public spaces outside India?
Brief:
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Incorporating Indian textiles into big retailers product lines (with acknowledgment) to make it more commonplace; OR
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Policy level intervention about microaggressions.
Why it didn’t work:​
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Amazon which has a widespread reach already has Indian garments onsite. Despite this reach, Indian garments aren’t commonplace so maybe a different strategy would have to be deployed as a solution.
While exploring these ideas, I became curious about how people learned about Indian textiles—and switched tracks when none of these ideas worked out. I started looking at how information on Indian textiles was made available to a layperson who used the internet or had a mild interest in learning more about it. How did edtech organizations gather their information and make content on this topic? Did they rely on the trusty, crowdsourced Wikipedia or online databases, repositories, and encyclopedias? I found several that were rich in information but were not easy to use. Some of these databases included the Government of India's Craft Cluster of India & the Handicrafts websites. Other resources include a textbook for 12th graders, ebooks on safeguarding Indian textiles, and textiles along the Silk Route.
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Screenshots of the Government of India's Craft Clusters of India database
which features extensive categories and drop-down fields but requires prior knowledge to operate.
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Screenshots of the Government of India's primer on Craft Processes for 32 crafts. Handloom, textile and textile techniques like zari (featured above) have been historically treated as "crafts". Left: An example of zari work as seen in this article on Google Arts & Culture; Right: A zoomed-in screenshot about zari as found on the Handicrafts website.
I quickly realized there were three major problems we were dealing with regarding information on Indian textiles. They were:
1.
Not search engine optimized
2.
Text heavy​
3.
Not optimized for first-time users & requires prior knowledge of the name of the textile technique/craft to operate
I also explored visual collections of Indian textiles, like on Artstor and the V&A Museum in London. These were far more interactive and contained information that was at times just about enough to provide context.
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Screenshots of Artstor and V&A Museum's expansive repository that contains several filters including category, person, organization, collection, gallery, style, image resolution and even geography!
I wanted to enable awareness and better representation of "Indian textiles" through a platform.
1.
A platform allowing Indian costume designers and supporting technicians to be hired for movies or shows that contain portrayals of Indians.
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This platform would eventually expand to have South Asian & Global South costume designers. While testing the paper-based lo-fi prototype, one of the participants commented on the potential redundancy of the platform given that recruiting and job-seeking sites already exist. The solution should somehow integrate responsible hiring within existing hiring processes.
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Another participant mentioned that the realities of the movie and TV industry make sure that hiring is based on in-person networks. While the industry is formalized and has processes in place, hiring decisions typically work based on whom you know.
2.
An Indian textile repository that is interactive, fun and could potentially act as an awareness device.
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The testing revealed that the Indian textile repository lacked one important form of input for a user — an upload image feature. This would help users to upload photos of textiles they've clicked or collected and then discover the repository further.
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The other major piece of feedback I received was that restricting the platform to Indian textiles may not be the best idea given how textiles and techniques transcend borders. For example, ikat fabrics are found in several countries including Indonesia, India, and Uzbekistan. Or that US preppy plaid culture is derived from Madras checks. The cross-linkages between these textile cultures could also be a part of the experience and this could help the platform reach more people.
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This idea was then represented through a quick prototype which included an upload image button and hypothetically leveraged the powers of generative AI to produce results — from Bagh in India to Paisley in Scotland.
Where to next?
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This idea is still in its nascent stages and has miles to go. Currently, I am in the process of doing more market research on whether this would work. If it shows promise, my next steps would be:
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To understand how AI can be harnessed to make this project a reality!
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Making it compliant with iOS and Android guidelines so that this works across channels and experiences.
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Undertake more usability testing.
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Testing it for business use cases — especially with stakeholders from the fashion and textile industry.
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Testing it with cultural organizations that deal with education, and culture like UNESCO and museums across the world.