Swati Kalsi

swati kalsi, a Textile and Fashion Designer, has worked with handcrafted textiles, for about a decade. Over the years, she has been noted; to have brought contemporary relevance to the time honoured handcrafted textiles of artisans, thereby pushing to create a basis for their livelihoods.

She engages with artisans in interactive creative processes, to bring forth the artist in them, creating distinct pieces of one off works, treading on the edge of design, craft and art. Over intriguing give and take and inconceivable twists and turns, emerges a unique design vocabulary that connotes timeless, understated elegance, highlighting the quirks and anomalies arising out of the process of creating.

Born in Delhi, Swati graduated from NIFT, Delhi in 2002 with awards for 'Best use of textiles in fashion' and 'Best overall performance'. She also won herself, a scholarship for Masters in Domus Academy, Italy, in an international Design Competition.

Swati was a part of a World Bank program that gave her, a unique platform to work closely with traditionally skilled artisans, to position Indian women's embroidery traditions as an innovative and a uniquely artistic cultural legacy.

She has been warmly noted by magazines like Vogue (India), Marie Claire (India) and facilitated by magazines like Elle (India) and Grazia (India) for craft revival and innovation in textiles respectively. Her work has made space for itself in the homes and wardrobes of eminent national and international artists, collectors, connoisseurs and museums like the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.