A Woven Life

Maya Mirchandani, Jenny Housego

Description

Richly layered and remarkably candid, this is anything but an ordinary memoir. Life-writing at its truthful and unapologetic best, here is a story of a textile historian, entrepreneur and collector with an eventful and adventurous life story. As a child in countryside England, Jenny had thought she would grow up to be a spy, but life had other plans. Brought to the world of Asian textiles, art and museums, she has over the last five decades travelled across Asia with a passion to document traditional, local, and nomadic weaves and handcrafted textiles. She lays bare her idyllic childhood in the aftermath of the Second World War; her aspirations of being in the arts and then as a researcher at the Victoria and Albert museum in London; the struggles of falling in and out of love and a broken marriage; of parenting; and her passion for Indian textiles, having established herself as one of the most successful British entrepreneurs working in India who co-founded the luxury brands shades of India and kashmir loom.

Sujets

• Women
• Irán
• Durry
• Fabindia
• Biography
• Rug
• Weaving
• Non-fiction
• Kashmir
• Journalism
• Autobiography
• Tribu (ethnologie)
• Cachemire (homonymie)
• HIStory
• Textile
• Haryana
• Iran

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 27 avril 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788194295990
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Richly layered and remarkably candid, A Woven Life is anything but an ordinary memoir. Life-writing at its truthful and unapologetic best, this is the story of a textile historian, entrepreneur and collector with an eventful and adventurous life story. As a child in countryside England, Jenny Housego had thought she would grow up to be a spy, but life had other plans. Brought to the world of Asian textiles, art and museums, she has, over the last five decades, travelled across Asia with a passion to document traditional, local and nomadic weaves and handcrafted textiles. In collaboration with Maya Mirchandani, Housego lays bare her idyllic childhood in the aftermath of the second World War; her aspirations of being in the arts and then as a researcher at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the struggles of falling in and out of love and a broken marriage; of parenting; and her passion for Indian textiles, having established herself as one of the most successful British entrepreneurs working in India who co-founded the luxury brands Shades of India and Kashmir Loom .
 
A
WOVEN
LIFE
 
OTHER LOTUS TITLES Anil Dharker Icons: Men & Women Who Shaped Today’s India Aitzaz Ahsan The Indus Saga: The Making of Pakistan Ajay Mansingh Firaq Gorakhpuri: The Poet of Pain & Ecstasy Alam Srinivas Women of Vision: Nine Business Leaders in Conversation Amarinder Singh The Last Sunset: The Rise & Fall of the Lahore Durbar Aruna Roy The RTI Story: Power to the People Ashis Ray Laid to Rest: The Controversy of Subhas Chandra Bose’s Death Bertil Falk Feroze: The Forgotten Gandhi Brij Mohan Bhalla Kasturba Gandhi: A Biography Harinder Baweja (Ed.) 26/11 Mumbai Attacked Harinder Baweja A Soldier’s Diary: Kargil – The Inside Story Ian H. Magedera Indian Videshinis: European Women in India Kunal Purandare Ramakant Achrekar: A Biography Lakshmi Subramanian Singing Gandhi’s India: Music and Sonic Nationalism Maj. Gen. Ian Cardozo Param Vir: Our Heroes in Battle Moin Mir Surat: Fall of a Port, Rise of a Prince, Defeat of the East India Company in the House Of Commons Monisha Rajesh Around India in 80 Trains Noorul Hasan Meena Kumari: The Poet Rajika Bhandari The Raj on the Move: Story of the Dak Bungalow Ralph Russell The Famous Ghalib: The Sound of my Moving Pen Rahul Bedi The Last Word: Obituaries of 100 Indian who led Unusual Lives R.V. Smith Delhi: Unknown Tales of a City Salman Akthar The Book of Emotions Shrabani Basu Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan Shahrayar Khan Bhopal Connections: Vignettes of Royal Rule Shantanu Guha Ray Mahi: The Story of India’s Most Successful Captain S. Hussain Zaidi Dongri to Dubai Sunil Gupta and Sunetra Choudhury Black Warrant: Confessions of a Tihar Jailer Thomas Weber Going Native: Gandhi’s Relationship with Western Women Thomas Weber Gandhi at First Sight Vaibhav Purandare Sachin Tendulkar: A Definitive Biography Vappala Balachandran A Life in Shadow: The Secret Story of ACN Nambiar – A Forgotten Anti-Colonial Warrior Vir Sanghvi Men of Steel: India’s Business Leaders in Candid Conversation
 

 
ROLI BOOKS
This digital edition published in 2020
First published in 2020 by
The Lotus Collection
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Copyright © Jenny Housego, 2020
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eISBN: 978-81-942959-9-0
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This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published.
 
For Asaf
Who gives me the strength to carry on
 
Contents

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
PART ONE
Oranges and Powdered Eggs
Apples, Peaches and Berries
Judy Dench Won’t Ever Know this
In a Pink Empire Line Dress
From Tehran with Love
On a Stormy Dhow to Dubai
Carpets and Weavers without Borders
French Summers and Anatolian Carpets
PART TWO
Begum’s Dogs and the Punjabi Bride’s Trousseau
Kidnapped in Kashmir
The Shades of India Story
Kashmir Loom : Stepping out of Another’s Shadow
Tragedy as a Teacher
Epilogue
 
Foreword

IT WAS THE TEXTILE HISTORIAN LOTIKA VARADARAJAN, ALWAYS linking like-minded crafty people together, who first told me about an Englishwoman called Jenny Housego, newly arrived in New Delhi. She invited me to a small get-together where Jenny was going to talk about her ongoing research on the Punja durries of Punjab and Haryana. (This eventually became Bridal Durries of India , the path-breaking book on durries, the pileless small floor coverings woven by women in north Indian villages for their trousseaus, which she and Ann Shankar wrote together.)
My Dastkar colleague, Bunny Page and I went over to the Housegos’ home on Sardar Patel Marg, and were suitably overcome by the magnificent collection of Persian and Central Asian tribal rugs, cushions and spreads that were everywhere. Hung on the walls, covering the floor, draped over sofas and chairs…. In the midst of all this, and the other amazing artworks and artefacts that filled every available space, was a sprightly little auburn-haired figure dressed in tawny oranges and leafy greens (her signature colours, as I learnt later).
As a little girl, I adored Cicely Mary Barker’s Flower Fairies series of picture books. I used to lose myself in the enchanting dreamlike watercolours of fairies perched on different flowering trees and bushes, dressed in matching fruit-, flower- and foliage-inspired clothes. Jenny reminded me so much of one of those elves – the autumnal Hawthorn Fairy or the Crab Apple Fairy. Even confined to a wheelchair as she is now, she still has that fey quality and that naughty yet innocent smile….
Anyway, we settled down to watch her slide presentation of the Punja durries’ documentation and out came the second side of Jenny! Behind the diffident, very British, understated, rather shy exterior was an insightful, academically trained mind; the scholarship coupled with a passionate excitement about her subject.
All these years later, I still remember Jenny’s illuminating exposition of ‘interlocking circles’ and how so many motifs and designs are based on combinations of this. After that I saw interlocking circles everywhere – on Etruscan mosaics, Celtic stone carving, Mughal jaali lattice work, Kutchi ajrakh block prints, rococo wrought iron, Indonesian wax resist batik s.
From that point, we became instant friends, sharing our travel and textile stories, meeting craftspeople together, poring over scraps of embroideries and block prints, endlessly discussing (over rather decadently large meals!) how age-old craft traditions could be adapted for today’s very different customers and lifestyles without losing their unique identity and meaning. When Jenny and her then husband David set up their export company, Shades of India, those discussions became the core of the company’s design philosophy. I think Jenny always regretted that the exigencies of bulk orders, export timelines and rigid quality control meant that it eventually become more cost-effective to teach the hand skills to women in the environs of Delhi rather than source materials and items from traditional craftspeople in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh or Banaskantha in Gujarat.
So it was natural when she left Shades to set up Kashmir Loom in Srinagar, that using local skills, local materials and local manpower was at the centre of her new, highly successful venture. As was the cutting-edge design: taking off from the traditional twill weaves, decorative buti s and jaal s characteristic of Kashmiri pashmina and kani weaving. The objective was quality rather than quantity; premium products for a discriminating premium customer, unique one-of-a-kind pieces rather than mass production.
Kashmir Loom was a role model for successful Indian craft development aimed at the international market, as Anokhi and Shyam Ahuja were in their time. Not only the products themselves, but the systems, the merchandising, the presentation, met international standards – there was no compromise. It was all the more remarkable as it all happened in the midst of the terrible insurgency and violence that overtook Kashmir in the last two decades of the twentieth century; at a time when bomb blasts and bandhs disrupted the Valley almost daily, and most international buyers and exporters had long stopped their orders. Kashmir Loom never allowed this to faze them. Perhaps its secret is that at its heart is an old-fashioned family enterprise, with affection, loyalty, trust and tradition as the fundament. Seeing Jenny surrounded by her Kashmiri staff and craftspeople is reminiscent of other nursery storybooks, a combination of Fairy Godmother and Mother Duck! Needless to say, her partner Asaf is also an integral part of this fairy tale, as he was in what came next.
A few years into this success story, Jenny was stricken by a terrible stroke. For some time it seemed she might never recover. But with that steely resolve that lies below her gentle exterior she willed herself to get better. With Asaf’s and the Kashmir family’s loving care, she worked at getting herself moving, talking, remembering, creating.... Today she whizzes about the world in her wheelchair – Paris, London, South America, Delhi and of course, Kashmir. There’s pain and frustration and an occasional blip, but she deals with this with a movingly matte