WHY I ALWAYS ROOT FOR INDIAN DESIGN, NOT ETHNIC

I am blessed to be in a family with a rich legacy of design, where the only thing discussed each day were new finishes, textures and international trends. Every month, there would be an international designer or a buyer working on the floor of the factory and getting totally floored with the way our artisans could etch on brass, create Art Deco sheens on iron or master a perfect curve on a piece of wood.

When I stepped into the world of interior design formally, I realised that what was being achieved in the factory was nothing short of a miracle or a design feat. And it was letting traditional craftsmen employ their skills to create a completely new and modern design language. To be able to turn around a wood carving from decorative Indian art to Art Deco contemporary only needed a change of vocabulary. To be able to interpret the Indian cheent into chintz just meant opting for a more European colour palette and to bend brass into a sharp texture was a matter of going geometric rather than floral.

Indian motifs have a very strong language. Our lattice works are geometry in perfection, our florals have stumped even the mills of Manchester and our craft in furniture making is solid and driven by natural woods and handcrafted finishes. No boards and veneers for us, please! Our craftsmen can rustle up a rare sheen with their very able hands on the best natural teak or pine wood.

It is this meeting of two cultures and the skill to create modern, yet warm and hospitable homes that led me to create our brand, “It’s All About Home”. Here, we use the task force of our artisans to create luxury that you and I can afford. We turn the privilege of bespoke into reality. After all, bespoke is firmly entrenched in the Indian psyche. Each one of us might have seen our parents get a furnisher to turn around the upholstery before our eyes, crafted our four poster bed to make it younger and usable, redone the facades of our homes to bear a new look each year, or added a hand-painted fresco with much ease.

Today, as a brand owner and a self-driven entrepreneur, this is the privilege I am trying to make possible for the young Indian homemaker, simply because ‘vocal for local’ must begin at home and exquisite craft should not find itself being shipped out of the country without us imbibing the depth of its design.

Born into the family of a leading exporter in Moradabad, Gunjan Gupta is an interior designer and the brain behind luxury décor brand It’s All About Home.