Cloth that has already been somewhere.
NÉVAH is a collectible design atelier. Vastra is its textile expression: tapestries pieced by hand from panels of old bridal and ceremonial wear.
By Neha Dev, India.
Twenty pieces. No two alike.
Each panel still carries the zari, mirror and aari of the wedding it came from. Nothing is distressed or antiqued. The wear is real: a neckline survives whole inside the patchwork, a patch holds the rub of a pallu that was gathered a thousand times.
No two garments are alike, so no two panels are alike, and no composition can be made twice. Each piece exists once. When it is taken, it is gone.
What is in the cloth.
Every Vastra is cut, composed and pieced by hand. Seams are left where the garments met, and a mirror may sit slightly off its line because the karigar who placed it was working by eye.
- Embroidered panels, piecedFrom old bridal and ceremonial wear, each carrying traditional Indian motifs and embellishment.
- Heavy gold and metallic threadZari worked flat and raised, across every panel.
- Small round mirrorsStitched by hand with fine embroidery thread, never glued.
- Gold beads, pearls and sequinsWorked into both the floral and the geometric passages.
- Chain stitch, or aariDrawn with a hooked needle by karigars.
- Finished to hangFinished on all four edges and backed, with a hidden sleeve, so a piece can hang, be framed or lie without further work.
Every piece is recorded here, once.
Each Vastra has its own page in this register: its number, its ground, its size, and a close photograph of one fixed detail that belongs to that piece and no other. The register records the piece, never the name of the person who owns it.
The mark travels with the piece.
Every Vastra leaves the studio with a signed and numbered cotton label sewn to its back, a certificate bearing the NÉVAH seal, and the case it travels in. The label and the certificate lead here, to the piece's own page.
Find the label
On the back of the piece, lower right: a sewn cotton label, signed and numbered by hand.
Scan it
Point a phone camera at the QR code, or hold the phone to the label. Either opens the piece's page in this register.
Match the detail
The page shows a close photograph of one fixed spot on the piece. Find that spot on the cloth: the beads, stones and seams will match exactly.
Or enter the number from the label or the certificate:
Name the piece or the ground.
Write to the studio and I will tell you the rest: how a piece hangs, how it travels, and where it can be seen.
Care: wipe gently with any soft cloth, mulmul is ideal. Keep every piece out of direct sunlight, and keep flame away from the metallic thread.
