Indian, Bhutanese designers to showcase collection at Mountain Echoes Festival

Indian and Bhutanese designers will display collections showcasing the textile legacy of both the nations at the eighth edition of the Mountain Echoes festival in Thimpu from August 24 to 27. Bhutan’s Chandrika Tamang and Chimmi Choden and India’s David Abraham and Rakesh Thakore will curate the collections merging the traditional with contemporary.

 
While Abraham and Thakore will bring the bright colours of Rajasthan woven in exquisite Khadi garments, a fusion of Indian Khadi with Bhutanese textiles woven on a traditional back-strap loom will be presented by Choden of Chimmi House of Design. Malika Kashyap, founder of digital publication Border and Fall, will present ‘The Sari Series’, a documentation of the apparel, according to Indian media reports.
 
Bhutan' sources majority of its silk, cotton, wool and raw silk yarns from India and textiles in both the nations have motifs like stripes, check patterns and the swastika.

Tamang, who has introduced block printing and tie dyeing in her collection inspired by five colours (blue, white, red, green, yellow) of prayer flags and the description of its element (sky, wind, fire, water, earth), feels that will give the Indian audience a fresh fashion sense.
 
The festival this year, with the theme ‘Untouched Beauty, Unexplored Ideas and Unstoppable Voices’, will host 70 literary figures from across the globe, including Bhutanese poet Ashi Sonam Choden Dorji, art restorer and author Ashi Kesang Choden T, politician Shashi Tharoor, writer Nadeem Aslam, senior ecologist Rebecca Pradhan, author and environmentalist Pradip Krishen and fiction writer Amrita Tripathi.