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Interiors
India’s emerging market for high-end, homegrown design
Designers from Delhi to Chennai are responding to demand for custom-made furniture and decor
An interior in Chennai designed by Viya Home, featuring its brass Colosseum coffee table and Persepolis table lamps ©Viya Home
DECEMBER 15, 2016 by: Trish Lorenz
“The word ‘design’ isn’t really part of the culture in India,” says Rashmi Varma. “Although
beautifully crafted products have been made here for centuries, I would say that a design
industry, as we consider it in the west, only really began to emerge in the last 15 years.”
Varma, coauthor of Sar: the Essence of Indian Design, is a textile designer who works with
artisans and craft organisations across India from her base in New Delhi. Also in the capital is
Gunjan Gupta, who founded Studio Wrap in 2006 and was one of the earliest proponents of
developing a contemporary Indian design aesthetic. Gupta found initially that the market for her
products was exportfocused. “Contemporary Indian furniture did not exist 10 years ago,” she
says. “Locally, there was a lack of confidence in the design process and objects made in India
were not considered desirable.”
Today, fuelled by a vast domestic market that is experiencing both economic growth and
increasing interest in home decor, the sector is growing and changing quickly. Studio Wrap is a
case in point: about 80 per cent of its current clientele are local. “We have been through the cycle
of importing Italian design but that’s not seen as cool any more. Now it’s cooler to ask an Indian
designer to customise a space for you,” says Gupta.
Designer Vikram Goyal is founder of Viya Home, a Delhibased practice that designs interiors
and furniture. The company has both domestic and international clients — recent projects
include homes in Chennai, Mumbai and New York — and the group also works with local artisans
to create custommade furniture for its residential and retail customers.
“Five years ago, most highend interiors in India looked like clones of one another: large minimal
spaces with furniture and lighting imported from the top Italian brands,” Goyal says. “But
recently tastes have become more sophisticated. There is a greater degree of individuality and
adventure and an appreciation of homegrown Indian design. Spaces are looking more
interesting.”
Young designers are also experimenting with a more Indian identity in their work. Farzin
Adenwalla founded Bombay Atelier in 2013 and creates handcrafted furniture and lighting. Her
Agarbatti table (from $900) references incense sticks with its elegant metal feet, and her brightly
coloured metal Namaste chair (from $250) evokes the traditional palmtogether greeting.
Adenwalla sees this as a promising time for young creatives in India. “We have the opportunity to
look at how we are living and what is relevant today,” she says. “It’s not about copying western
influences any more but about developing our own identity and pushing traditional craft into
more contemporary styles.”
Although a national visual style has yet to fully develop, a focus on craftsmanship and local
materials is beginning to emerge as a key part of the Indian design vernacular.
Architect Rooshad Shroff (http://rooshads.wix.com/rooshadshroff) launched his studio in
Mumbai in 2011, following degrees at Cornell and Harvard and stints working with Zaha Hadid
and OMA, Rem Koolhaas’s Rotterdambased practice. Along with interiors for commercial clients
such as Louboutin, he creates bespoke residential spaces for private clients and also has a
limitededition furniture collection, including an Embroidered sofa (from €22,000) and bespoke
handcarved marble lightbulbs (from €690).
“Indian design is more about the act of making rather than an aesthetic,” says Shroff. “It’s about
handmade and local materials such as marble, wood, leather and brass. Traditional Indian motifs
such as paisley print are still referenced but in a more popart way.”
Working on an Embroidered sofa, from €22,000, rooshads.wix.com
Designer Manasa Prithvi of Ira Studio takes a broader perspective, reflecting India’s multiethnic
society of 1.25bn people and 22 official language groups. “Indian design is as complex and diverse
as the country itself,” she says, “but generally it is infused with craft and is inspired by vernacular
objects. It’s about reinterpreting these objects; there’s a nod towards tradition but products are
more contemporary and functional for life today.”
Ira Studio creates handmade, limitededition and bespoke products using traditional crafts, such
as its teak and brass Tekku stools (from $775 each). “In the past, the concept of luxury in India
was all about ornate pieces and surface embellishment. Simple and refined design wasn’t seen as
value for money. That’s changing and young urban consumers particularly are beginning to focus
more on quality and simplicity,” says Prithvi.
It is young urban consumers who are likely to drive the design sector in India. According to
Euromonitor, the country’s median income per household is set to increase by almost 90 per cent
in real terms by 2030, with the number of middleclass households exceeding 90m (up from 74m
in 2014).
Blue/Mint Coconut Palm Pickers cushion, £52
Coral Coconut Palm Pickers double quilt, £187, safomasi.com
Many western companies, such as Ikea, UK retailer Habitat and US brand West Elm, source
products in India, and Ikea plans to launch a series of stores in the country from next year. If
others follow, it will be a strong impetus for growth in the national design industry.
At present India has relatively few design retailers, online stores such as Indelust being the
exception. The company sponsored the This is India exhibition at this year’s London Design
Festival (http://next.ft.com/content/19d647da62e411e68310ecf0bddad227), presenting the
work of 12 designers including Studio Objectry, metal specialist Taamaa and textile (http://next.f
t.com/content/f2b6e154621311e59846de406ccb37f2) designer Safomasi.
The show was curated by Spandana Gopal, founder and creative director of the AngloIndian
design group Tiipoi. “The wealthy elite travel abroad, have context around design and now want
to buy Indian design,” she says. “But the middle class can’t afford to do so at the moment because
the work of independent designers tends to fall into the luxury price bracket. I think it’s only a
matter of time before designers begin to find ways to reach a broader local audience.”
Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to
distribute to others. © The Financial Times Ltd.
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