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French-Indian textile designer brings back Mughal patterns
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In this picture taken on June 2, 2022, Indian naturalized textile designer Brigitte Singh displays an original fabric of the 17th century with a poppy flower design made for Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, in her office in Amber on the outskirts of Jaipur in India's Rajasthan state. Textiles designer Brigitte Singh lovingly lays out a piece of cloth embossed with a red poppy plant made probably for emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, four centuries ago.
(AFP/Xavier Galiana)
T
extiles designer Brigitte Singh lovingly lays out a piece of cloth embossed with a red poppy plant she says was probably designed for emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, four centuries ago.
For Singh -- who moved from France to India 42 years ago and married into a maharaja's family -- this exquisite piece remains the ever-inspiring heart of her studio's mission.
The 67-year-old is striving to keep alive the art of block printing, which flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries under the conquering but sophisticated Mughal dynasty that then ruled India.
"I was the first to give a renaissance to this kind of Mughal design," Singh told AFP in her traditional printing workshop in Rajasthan.
Having studied decorative arts in Paris, Singh arrived aged 25 in 1980 in western India's Jaipur, the "last bastion" of the technique of using carved blocks of wood to print patterns on material.
"I dreamed of practising (miniature art) in Isfahan. But the Ayatollahs had just arrived in Iran (in the Islamic revolution of 1979). Or Herat, but the Soviets had just arrived in Afghanistan," she remembers.
"So by default, I ended up in Jaipur," she said.
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