Rachna Singh, the co-founder and design lead behind Jaipur-based sustainable clothing company Dhãran, thought she was headed for a career in dance. Then came her wholehearted embrace of botanical watercolours, hand printed textiles, the embroidery of Muzzaffar Ali, the lessons of Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren, the joys of teaching, the complexities of Indian running stitch, and the wisdom of arranging a marriage for herself based on complementary skills and a shared passion for family business, traditional crafts and sustainable practices.
STARTING OUT
Rachna Singh’s creativity first expressed itself through dance. As a child in Uttar Pradesh she learned classical dance and envisaged pursuing this art form for life. But in a family where administration jobs in industries like banking, engineering and medicine were the norm, a career in dance didn’t seem feasible. “I would give my mother credit for taking me into a different art form, which is drawing and painting,” Rachna says.
She said, ‘If you cannot dance with your feet, you can dance with your hands’.
“She gave me a brush and colours and showed me a few things. Maybe she also wanted to be an artist when she was small.”
Art captivated Rachna. Botanical watercolours in particular. The once-disengaged student thrived. Teachers spotted her talent and suggested textile design, given the many career opportunities it affords in India’s long established, flourishing textiles industry. She studied Fine Arts, did her Masters in Drawing & Painting at Allahbad University, and in 1999 was amongst the first Textile Design students at Jaipur’s then-fledgling, now-celebrated Indian Institute of Craft and Design.
EARLY CAREER
After graduation Rachna was offered a job by fashion designer Muzzaffar Ali, renowned for Chikankari, the distinctive white-on-white embroidery hailing from Lucknow in her home state of Uttar Pradesh. For two years she trained with him, learning multiple techniques and building collections for fashion shows.
When her sister relocated close to Delhi, Rachna joined her. So began several years designing high-end soft furnishings for fashion icons at Orient Craft, a major apparel and furnishings manufacturer and exporter to clients including Ralph Lauren, Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, Armani, Superdry, Zara Home, Tommy Hilfiger, Urban Outfitters, Macy’s, Abercrombie & Fitch, Debenhams and Marks & Spencer. Quite the education.
“I was promoted to a head designer within two years,” Rachna recalls.
I was working with a lot of overseas buyers like Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren. I got amazing exposure. And it was the right time because I knew a lot of things and I got a canvas to play around on.
Designing complete bedding collections – quilts, bolsters, curtains, cushions, decorative pillows – for this high-quality niche market gave her valuable insights into the export business and the ways international designers build collections. “They started with a mood or theme board and took it to such a level to produce a product range using the techniques of different crafts and skills together: tie-dye, embroidery, printing,” she says. “How to combine it and make it a range was a very great learning for me. From inspiration to final product, how the product is sold in shops, photography, how the bed is to be made, what sort of painting should hang near it – it was an amazing experience. And there were so many people involved, for around seven-and-a-half to eight metres fabric.”
MARRIED TO HER WORK
Rachna was as happy as a textile artist and designer as she’d once been as a dancer. But her parents were keen to arrange marriage, which would mean shifting focus to her husband’s family. “I had no ambition in terms of getting married,” she recalls. But she agreed to meet a few suitors her parents selected. “They took my work as a hobby,” Rachna says. “They couldn’t really understand why I was doing it. If I took it forward or not it didn’t really matter to them. I did not like that fact. I wanted to take my work further, and I wanted to do this all my life. I was not just doing it to pass time.”
Fortunately, she found an alternative path. Studying in Jaipur she’d met fellow design student Dhananjai Singh, who shared her love of textiles. So did his family. His mother, Raj Kanwar, founded her hand-block printed textiles business Ojjas Crafts in 2000; Rachna visited often and regularly created floral designs at Raj’s request. Dhananjai’s skills and interests complemented both Rachna’s and Raj’s. “He’s a very technical person,” Rachna says. “Even today his contribution is technical, like when we’re printing – the binder, what you make in the colour, washing to be done this way, machinery, computers. He can do any wonders in terms of graphics and presentations. I’m not a technical person, I’m more an aesthetics person. So we’re a very good team.”
Here was a man and a family who understood and valued her skills and passions, and vice versa.
“So I felt that, if I have to get married, I’d be very happy with this kind of a family where everybody’s into that same line and they would understand my instinct also.” Once her parents met the Singhs they, too, were happy with the match. And quite naturally, over time, the trio’s shared love of textiles, and each other, and their complementary skills, helped evolve Ojjas and launch Dhãran, the sustainable clothing brand Rachna and Dhananjai began four years ago.
FAMILY BUSINESS
Once Dhananjai and Rachna wed and returned to Jaipur, Dhananjai’s technical expertise and Rachna’s knowledge of hand embroidery, home furnishings and high-end international exports helped opened up new avenues for expansion. “We participated in the Handicraft Gift Fair, which happens twice a year in Greater Noida, and we got very good orders on home furnishings,” Rachna says. “We got orders for block printed curtains and things like this, and that is how we started expanding.”
“Initially we started with the US – New York – and then gradually Europe and Japan.” Over time they diversified further and dropped soft furnishings in favour of garments, which were smaller and therefore less time-consuming to block print by hand. Garments also lent themselves well to Raj’s fine, intricate designs, which Rachna began to overlay but not overpower with delicate hand embroidery. “We wanted to take hand-block printing forward,” Rachna says.
We’re very passionate about the artisans here and we really wanted the people already associated with us to continue doing it. We knew we should be able to generate more livelihoods.
HONING SKILLS
Dhãran is the product of multiple skills, influences and experiences acquired over many years by Rachna, Dhananjai and Raj and their highly skilled team of artisan printers, tailors and embroiders, a combination of salaried staff and contractors steeped in textile traditions from all over India.
Rachna honed her already exquisite embroidery skills while resting during pregnancy, producing what would become an award-winning series of wall hangings featuring the Tree of Life and made with fabric remnants and handwoven Tussar silk from Bihar. These were later acquired by art foundations and Jaipur’s glamourous Rambagh Palace Hotel.
After her son was born the economy was flat, and Rachna returned to the Indian Institute of Craft and Design to teach. She found she loved sharing her skills. In around 2012 she was asked to create the Institute’s Embroidery Design Bank, a dream gig that involved documenting India’s rich history of embroidery and collecting and commissioning major stitches from diverse artisan communities in 14 states. “In India running stitch, for example, is done in different states in different ways and it goes by different names,” Rachna explains. “We realised it had maybe six different names and interpretations.” Her delightfully complex brief was to capture that diversity in regional embroidery traditions and tell the stories of the skills and the communities behind it.
Raj, meanwhile, moved Ojjas’s workshop to a sustainable industrial estate in Bagru, a village on the outskirts of Jaipur, alongside other textiles businesses with a shared commitment to natural dyes, materials and fabrics, water recycling and waste reduction.
This combination of traditional handcrafts and sustainable production is at the heart of Dhãran, too.
Raj also launched a highly popular calendar of workshops, sharing her approach and techniques like mud-resist and indigo printing with artisans and creative tourists from all over the world. It was here Rachna met a retired teacher from the London College of Fashion – the latest in a long line of accomplished designers who encouraged her work and fostered her career development. She suggested Rachna apply for LCF’s Study Abroad program, and a fellow workshop participant invited Rachna to stay with her while she did. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.
“At that time we were not doing garments and were not sure how to take the business forward,” Rachna says. “I didn’t have any exposure to garments, and I was very scared. How should I plan things? How should I go about it? Should I just continue doing what I was doing – designing blocks and helping Mama in terms of printing?” In 2016 she went to London for an intense, action-packed four months in LCF’s Product Fashion Design course to develop the skills, exposure and confidence she needed.
“I was really working very hard,” she recalls with a laugh. “I had to complete my assignments in the night and submit them the next day.” She thrived on the pressure, and found in classes on styling, draping and particularly fashion illustration the inspiration and process for putting together her first collection. “I am good with painting and grasping that sort of thing, so I quickly picked up the illustration,” she says. “Then I could design a range through my sketches.” She’d registered the name Dhãran before she left for London, and returned home with designs for the new business’s first range.
BRAND AWARENESS
Outside class Rachna visited London’s design museums and retail showrooms, met designers, and quizzed customers about the underlying appeal of their favourite brands. “For me a basic learning was that in fashion it’s not just about making the garment. Who is making your product? It has to be clear. It gives authenticity to your label.” She saw how customers understood the role of fast fashion in waste and pollution and wanted to understand the motivations behind a label. Brands that were locally sourced, genuinely sustainable and fair trade built loyalty. “These are the major global issues that came across to me,” she says.
Rachna saw the importance of sharing the story behind Dhãran in its marketing, given Ojjas’s longstanding commitment to traditional skills, natural materials and sustainable practices.
Back in Jaipur Rachna developed this ethos further with ranges of fabric jewellery and coverlets made from remnants to achieve zero waste.
It felt good to celebrate their achievements and be “part of a fashion revolution that can be really useful in the long term”.
UNDERSTANDING HER MARKET
Dhãran’s richly detailed garments are all exquisitely worked by hand: dyed, cut, printed, washed, stitched and packaged. The collection has expanded via other local crafts to include metal jewellery, glass bangles, handmade footwear and beads. Its market is currently a mix of locals and international designers from countries like Japan who share with Rachna an eye for detail and a focus on quality. She describes her customers’ appreciation for her uncompromising approach as “the main thing that’s kept me going.” The trick is to maintain quality without charging obnoxious prices or short-changing the artisans who create each garment. “We try to manage things so it’s feasible for everyone,” she says.
JUGGLING ROLES
Rachna spends her days interacting with many people: conceptualising designs and discussing suitable fabrics and techniques with international clients; working a season ahead on her own ranges; talking with staff and customers at her Jaipur showroom; discussing production and price-points with her husband; marketing Dhãran via Instagram; planning the next zero-waste initiative; and managing her family and household.
The Dhãran showroom operates by appointment. It occupies the ground floor of a beautiful contemporary home and lush garden that’s been Raj home for 20 years. Stitching happens at an office nearby. Printing takes place at Ojjas in Bagru, 40 minutes away, where Rachna spends a full, fun day each month.
PROS AND CONS
Rachna concedes there are advantages and disadvantages to running a family business. On the up side, “My mother-in-law has experienced things she can share, and has many contacts she passes on to us,” she says. Raj also introduces her workshop participants to Dhãran, which is a great source of sales and clients. “These are the advantages I feel make a huge difference to the business.”
The downside is the inevitable discussion of work pressures and problems at home.
Because we live together it affects everyone, Rachna concedes.
“Sometimes it’s not good for our child. He gets bored when we’re all talking about the same topic. You need a break sometimes.”
ADVICE
Rachna’s advice for emerging designers contemplating a life in business is to be honest, answerable and responsible. “Right from the start, from the artisans to the person you are designing for. Don’t over-promise. You can’t continue with fake promises.” Also, respect hands-on experience and take time to sit with artisans and learn the techniques and materials at the heart of your prints and products. “You’re in a learning process,” Rachna says. “Don’t consider ‘this is not my job’. When you print a design, then you realise how it works. It’s very important to be a part of it. From outside you cannot understand how it works.”
WHAT I’VE LEARNED ABOUT…
PLANNING
“Production cannot be done haphazardly, it has to be planned,” Rachna says. Rookie designers tend to create garments they love and hope for the best. Experienced designers begin a range with business realities like profitability, margins and marketing in mind. “Now it starts with such things and we work backwards,” Rachna explains. “We think about how and when this range is going to be placed. If Diwali is coming then what kind of range should be there and what kind of marketing strategy are we going to follow? Are we going to do newspaper ads or some kind of event, and what will we sell online?” Rachna and Dhananjai are similarly strategic about analysing sales data and keeping up-to-date about details like what percentage of their business comes from local and export ranges and commissions.
APPS
WhatsApp is Dhãran’s most useful tool for communications, planning and project management. Tailors, cutting masters and production staff tasked with dyeing a zip or covering all use WhatsApp groups to share progress. “Everybody has WhatsApp access and they can convert into Hindi, send pictures, say ‘please approve’,” Rachna explains. “It’s easy.”
COLLABORATION
Rachna and Dhananjai have learned to collaborate closely to plan production and maximise resources. “We have a lot of overlaps, so when he has free production time he’ll let me know.” Rachna says. “If tailors are going to be there with not enough work I’ll plan my range to be stitched in that time. They come from far away to work here, so they want continuous work. Their holidays are always planned around festivals and occasions. Everything needs to be considered.”
