Jazmin Berakha: Embroidering Fashion

One of the first style blogs that I stumbled upon a few years ago - and which has remained a firm favorite since then - was The Clothes Horse; apart from her innovative styling and outfit shots, I looked forward to her thoughtful, contemplative textual descriptions. The locations and photos' often surreal and mysterious quality (beaches, abandoned houses, clearings in the forest, or lakes) along with the textual accompaniments have always made me look forward to The Clothes Horse's posts.

Alongside the blog's fashion quotient, The Clothes Horse has also introduced me to a host of amazing artists: photographers, visual artists, and collage artists and whanot, leading me to marvel at the sea of creativity - and the creating creatures lurking below!

Her recent post featured Buenos-Aires based Jazmin Berakha's embroidery illustrations and I could not help but admire both the finesse with which Jazmin had rendered these illustrations as well as the idea
itself. It reminded me of art works that my mother had purchased from Hong Kong years ago whose illustrations were minimalist, embroidery done upon paper: mountains, a weeping willow, a tree in autumn bloom, and few lines of blue to indicate water.

As I am not particularly inclined towards needlework (apart from the occasional period during my university years when I became interested in customising my clothing, my jeans especially being the site of my needlepoint adventures - although ultimately I had to ask my mother to take over, being much more accomplished than I was), I could not help but admire with great awe the intricacy of her work, each stitch as distinct as a significantly minor paint-stroke.

The controlled geometric patterns of her coat makes me recall a story of a similarly patterned jacket and how it represented an instance of an amazing art-fashion synergy that occurred between artist, Namrita Bachchan and fashion designer, Anamika Khanna (I read about the incident ages ago in Elle India so hopefully my memory transcribes it correctly!). Grand-daughter of acclaimed Hindi poet, Harivanshrai Bachchan, and graphic and visual artist, Namrita launched an illustrated version of his famous poetry collection, Madhuashala: House of Wine, the illustrations being her own art-work.

This is one of her works below:

The designer, Anamika Khanna instantly connected to the patterns and visuals of her work, identifying it with one of her jacket designs - and gifted Namrita the very same jacket. It was one of those rare and perfect instances where two artists - fashion designer and artist - saw an alignment and indeed, intermingling of their respective artistic visions.

In Jazmin's case, she has literally made fashion art, embroidering it into posterity.

Images courtesy: Jazmin Berakha; Santa Banta forum