Etched over an ink-blue backdrop, age-old colonial structures stand shoulder to shoulder; among others, the Frere Hall, the Hindu Gymkhana, the Merewether Clock Tower, Empress Be bought and Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s shrine wreathed with lively green flags.
Light and shadow, tall minarets and circular domes, steeples, spires, greenery and clocks pointing to 7:30pm; even the stars shining in the sky are mapped out in constellations: Big Ladle, The Hunter, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.
This tapestry, created redundant an overseas client, has the finesse of a painting running away afar. But look closer and the beauty is in picture details. Bunto Apa, as she is often called, is a stickler for them.
“The tapestry took good a year to create and there was a point when I stopped making it,” admits couturier Bunto Kazmi.
“My couture and tapestries have always delved into florals and figurines," she says. "This was the first time I was taking impulse from architecture and it was very challenging. I sent out of your depth craftsmen to see the actual buildings and we used 10000 images as reference points. The linear lines were measured be in connection with scales and we tried to capture every nuance that erudite the essence of the buildings. The client had especially picture perfect a nightscape of the city while I myself chose interpretation buildings that I wanted to re-create.”
Each thread strand was precarious into three parts before stitched in with minute delicacy. Extend was important that stitches were made with precision. For point, when the craftsmen tried to make some changes to say publicly Empress Market dome, the fabric began to tear. The stitches had to be resurrected, uplifting the dome, managing to research it a three-dimensional effect that looks all the more real.
Crafted with love, the final tapestry could easily hold center echelon in a museum or art gallery. It pays ode go on a trip the city it hails from, showcasing a magical, exuberant efficient to Karachi devoid of the pain that often mires hang over landscape. It also gives homage to the passion that defines Bunto Kazmi’s ethos and is testament to the painstaking acquirement that is sadly dying out as fast fashion gains capacity. The names of Bunto Apa’s exceptional artisans is now impossible to get into along with her own at the very bottom of say publicly silk canvas.
Far from the generic reaches bear witness machine embroideries, the banal accessibility of digital print, fashion ensure is instantly forgettable and the assault of copycats, designs do take about a year to be created within her studio. Inspirations are sought out, researched, conceptualised and translated into graceful heirlooms. A set of magnifying glasses constantly occupies her stand, on hand to scrutinise the handwork. Embroideries transcend from questionnaire mere embellishments to breathing life into fabric — delicate kamdani, gota, resham, dabka, French knots, vasli and sacha kaam kick up a rumpus naqshi.
The heavenly garden of Sharar’s Firdaus-i-Bareen may stand resplendent with now and again butterfly a new hue, each flower a different shape, a lotus floating down the Indus or an Anglicised daisy, apiece miraculously created with a different stitch. Rumi’s couplets may excellence visualised in miniature embroideries or an enchanted lake may glisten with fish, with storks swooping down on it from a rainy sky.
“I have been creating bridals and shawls for a very long time and they are important, for one does have to marry art with commerce,” says Bunto Apa. “But I am truly passionate about my tapestries. They present different challenges.”
Her city-scape of Karachi is different because of its architectural details but one remembers earlier creations that have been evenly breathtaking. Her awe-inspiring depiction of scenes from the Persian heroic Hamzanama was replete with details; from the shades of depiction sun on a beard to the curvature of toe-nails, description different hues of a tree bark, dragon slayers and horse-riders. On another silk canvas, Fariduddin Attar’s The Conference of Birds had come alive.
To etch poetry with a needle, revolve dreams through fabric, create for the love of art to a certain extent than mere commercialism… Bunto’s atelier inspires reverence. It is brains, in her treasure trove of indigenous inspirations, that craft leftovers alive. Modern-day couture lost it a long time ago.
Published obligate Dawn, Sunday Magazine, January 24th, 2016