When Karishma Swali first stepped into her father’s atelier as a child in Mumbai, Indian classical music filled the room as textile artists worked together in silence. Just as the music had its maestros, her father told her, their embroiderers were masters, too.
“I remember feeling such a reverence for them,” she says. Her father, Vinod Shah, founded Chanakya International textile house in 1984, which has worked with over 30 of the top luxury houses, including Christian Dior, Prada, Gucci and Schiaparelli.
Swali has worked at Chanakya for more than 30 years and has been the managing and creative director for over two decades. She oversees a workforce of around 2,400 artisans and founded the Chanakya School of Craft, where she trains the next generation of embroiderers to keep more than 5,000 years of cultural heritage alive. In recent years, Swali has showcased Chanakya’s artwork at the Venice Biennale and the Vatican Library in Rome. With her daughter, Avantika, she recently launched Chorus, an atelier that offers ready-to-wear products.
Here, Swali, 49, who lives in Mumbai, talks about the spirituality in her work, the challenges of founding a school and how she preserves a vanishing craft.
What inspired your father to create Chanakya?
We come from a small village in Gujarat, where every village celebrates culture through craft. He founded Chanakya with this idea of being able to share with the world our collective identities and how textiles for India have always been such an important part of who we are.
What was it like for you to grow up in your father’s atelier?
We’re quite a spiritual family, and we prayed together most mornings. My parents often spoke to me about this term in our scriptures called samu purushartha. Samu translates roughly to togetherness, and purushartha translates to effort. The essence of that philosophy was that when you are doing something collectively, the result is exponentially and unexpectedly far more beautiful. They’d explained it to me from a spiritual point, but I never understood. Then when I started going to the ateliers, it dawned on me: This is samu purushartha. And the fact that they generously allowed me to participate, I remember as a child, I felt special.
What kind of values have been passed down in your family?
One of the standout values is that my father always tells us that unless every single person wins, it’s not a win. And so that stays with us, every stakeholder must win.
What do you think makes Indian embroidery and textiles special to the global fashion industry?
India has had a huge influence on world culture through textiles. There was a time when muslin from India was the most coveted fabric in the world. If you look at France [in the 17th century], India was exporting the most exquisite textiles, whether it was silks, or chintz, or things from the Coromandel coast.
The same is true for embroideries. We were sending out embroideries all over the world as early as the 16th century. It’s wonderful to think about how that history continues. Because of that unbroken patronage, there has been the ability to keep evolving, excelling and innovating. In so many ways today, it is the center for couture, for handmade fabrics and for anything woven.
Was cost a reason that luxury brands sourced textiles and embroideries from India?
Within couture and the finest prêt-à-porter in the world, the reason why Indian embroidery is so sought after is that it’s the very finest. Also, let’s face it: these skills in the rest of the world have really been lost. So if you really want to create a masterpiece that requires hundreds and thousands of hours, perhaps this is the only place you can actually come and make it.
What’s one of the works you’re most proud of?
When we had the Dior Fall 2023 show in India, we were commissioned to make a large textile work. We made a massive monumental toran, which is a very traditional Indian way to welcome people into people’s homes—every village will have a toran, typically made by the women of the home. We had over 1,008 pieces made by different masters and our women who came together. It was such a beautiful exercise of free creative expression coming together to honor history, but also to find your own voice.
Was it difficult for you to start the school of craft?
The short answer is yes. When we started the school, I thought that the most challenging part would be to build a curriculum that is robust and holistic and globally relevant to create the idea of what a master weaver or embroiderer can be. But once we built that curriculum and we were happy about it, no one came to the school.I began by literally going door to door within underserved neighborhoods, explaining the vision of the school. I told them that we have a school and it’s free. Please come and learn. And with great suspicion, 22 women came and decided to give it a shot, but they’d often come with their husbands or their mothers-in-law, who were waiting there. And when I think back 10 years down the line, it’s wonderful to now see that we have a community of 1,400 women, and there’s a waiting list to be part of the school.
Why should people still care about handmaking?
The physical act of making and working by hand is maybe the single strongest human act. Thankfully, AI cannot replace that.