In a Juggernaut exclusive, designer Mayyur Girotra and fashion consultant Diya Mehta Jatia sat down with us to chat about how they worked with Bengali artisans to center shola, a dying craft. Traditionally, shola is made by carving the pith of Aeschynomene aspera, an aquatic plant that grows in Bengal, Assam, and the Deccan plateau into intricate designs. You see shola everywhere — from Durga Puja pandals to mukuts Bengali brides and topors Bengali grooms wear. “It’s a beautiful art form,” Girotra told us. “They call it God-made material.”
But today, there are only a few families that practice craft, with future generations unable to continue the tradition. “A lot of crafts in India are on the verge of dying because the generations forward don’t want to do it anymore,” Girotra shared. Not only that, but the plant’s habitat is rapidly disappearing.
He worked with four Kolkata artisans to recreate shola for the Met Gala — using real sholapith would have been too fragile for the big day. They used rubber waste to create the same effect, painstakingly carving each piece. The shola component of the outfit took nine weeks. Girotra then layered it over a gold-and-silver Kanjeevaram sari to achieve the final look.
“A lot of international brands use India for their own embroidery techniques of bringing their outfit together. So I don’t really need to look that far. I just need to look within,” Jatia told us. “I just hope they can see the amount of hard work that’s gone behind it and the people who actually made it get the credit they deserve.”
We have edited the below interview for clarity and length.
