Nikita Mehta

With my experience of over a decade working closely with weavers and artisans in Kutch, Rajkot, Surendranagar, Chanderi, Maheshwar, Varanasi, Jaipur, Bengal. "Chakor" was founded to bring their stories alive in their weaves and crafts, restoring traditional hand based techniques and translating them into contemporary designs and offering a quality product. My effort is to build a bridge between the craft based rural producers - weavers and artisans, and modern and urban market, thereby creating a base for skilled, sustainable rural employment, and preserving India's traditional handicrafts in the process. I strive to create products that are purely natural, craft based, contemporary, and affordable, that delight the customers by interpreting our rich heritage and traditional knowledge. * Conceptualization & Designing of various products like sarees, fabrics & apparel. * Experimentation in weaving using blends of different yarns types and trying to incorporate two styles of crafts working around and projecting the best of both, in the same product. * Working closely at every stage with weavers and artisans by providing various design inputs and ensuring a quality product, guiding them to improvise quality & maintain the characteristics of the craft. * Planning shoots, creating graphic work for digital media and managing social media promotions. * Handling operations and sales through own ecommerce store & various other channels like travel shows & boutique ecommerce portals like Avishya, Jaypore, Parisera, Ogaan & Jharonka.

BANDHEJ was established in 1985, with a vision to uphold, preserve and sustain the precious hand skills and inherent knowledge of the indigenous artisan through design interventions. Brand specializes in range of ecofriendly, fashion clothing that has an understated elegance, clothing that reflects tradition and innovation, simplicity and sophistication. Key Deliverables- 1) Conceptualization and Designing * Sourcing and development of new materials, based on traditional textiles with weavers and artisans. * Finalizing fabric story every season based on product trends, historical data and field input. * Design and development in seasons for both the labels - BANDHEJ & RED DOT - womens wear & mens wear collection comprising of silhouettes, embellishments & fits. * Worked on ethnic wear, casual, semi formal, evening wear and bridal wear for BANDHEJ label. * Worked on smart casuals and semi formal womens & mens wear in knits for the RED DOT label. * Research and development - embellishments techniques like appliqué, mukaish, hand embroidery, machine embroidery, khatla work, machine texturing. * Worked on traditional textiles like Chanderi, Patola, Tussars (in Champa region), Maheshwaris, Mangalgiris, Benerasis, Ikats, Bandhanis, Bhujodi, Batik, etc. * Worked with block print artisans in various regions, Ajrakh in Dhamadka( Kutch), Indigo in Jodhpur, traditional prints in Jaipur & Barmer. * Designing and development - range of sarees, dupattas, stoles for every season * Sampling, Pattern making and fit developments for womens wear & mens wear range. * Cost working based on cost of product and negotiations with artisans and vendors. Work Assignments * Designed and executed a knit collection of womens wear and mens wear for FABINDIA for three seasons. * Conceptualized and executed Bandhej web store: conducted photo-shoot, product cataloguing, etc. * Designing and executing ...

Parijat Studio a freelance apparel designer, conceptualized & designed a range of indo-western womens wear comprising of tunics, tops, jackets & bottoms. Thereafter developed garment samples with finish and embroidery details which was later to be used for collections highlighting placement block prints with natural dyes.