As we look through their Autumn-Winter ’12 collection, a corner in our mind erupts into the triumphant Garvi Gujarat anthem that stole the hearts of music lovers just a few years ago. Earthy, rooted and wonderfully representative of the sun, the heat, the mud, the rain and the life of Gujarat — the latest collection from Abraham & Thakore is simply and irresistibly inspiring!“We both (David Abraham and Rakesh Thakore) met at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad and so one day, we knew we’d go back to that vivid land, to be inspired, re-inspired rather by the beauty and the love that the Gujaratis abound in,” opens up the good-looking-for-his-age Rakesh Thakore as we catch up with him just before his preview of the collection in Bangalore.

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You can almost smell the earth in this collection that wonderfully plays with a surprisingly bright palette for the Abraham & Thakore design sense. “We went a little berserk this time and incorporated a lot of bright colours into the palette, including sand, lac, flame, madder and shades of red and black — experimenting quite shamelessly with the colours of Gujarat, yet sticking to our more defined, subtle sense of colour,” Rakesh adds.

One look through the collection, that abounds in dresses, saris, coats, tunics and trousers, shows you that the duo have stayed faithful to their western silhouettes, this time, however, wonderfully incorporating inspirations from the East — the East here being Gujarat.

“It’s hard not to be influenced by the local silhouettes, especially when one is dealing with Gujarat— they have a penchant for the vivid and while we also love vivid, we understand that we’re creating clothes for a very different clientele. So you have us being inspired,  using their colours — which are wonderfully earthy and we even take inspiration from local cuts and silhouettes like the kedia, while also incorporating bandhej and bandhani into our more popular western silhouettes. It’s like the best mélange you could imagine and it’s truly exciting,” enthuses Rakesh.

From silks and cottons, to light weight wools and other natural fabrics, this collection explores the very nature of decoration and ornamentation that Gujarat is famous for. Of course, with a fresh and more sophisticated look at embroidery, block printing, bandhani, bandhej and the mirror work crafts that make the region world famous.

“Since this collection is so heavily dependant on Indian craftsmanship, we have taken extra precautions to ensure that the fabric we source is of the quality that our clientele trusts us for. This, however, is not too much of a problem as we have worked with a specific group of people in the state before and now are quite assured of their quality. However, to ensure that these clothes are exactly how we imagined them to be, we do take that extra bit of precaution and still thoroughly check our raw material before we create anything,” explains Rakesh.

With such a rigorous method in place, and such wonderful reinterpretations of local crafts, it’s no wonder that Abraham & Thakore are still considered to be one of the best designer duos in the country. With hardly anytime left, just half an hour to the preview, Rakesh and David make a beeline for the door and we just about manage to quickly add in the last question — what about the sari silhouette that has now found a place at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London?

“Well, it’s a great honour definitely, to be chosen for our sari silhouette, it is after all one of the most prestigious collections of international art and design in the world. What makes it even more exciting is that the sari silhouette will now be a part of a permanent collection that also consists of designs from grand couturiers through the years, like Coco Chanel and Christian Dior,” concludes Rakesh as we finally let him go.