The cloth
was reversible, looking like Blue Denim and the inner side was gray. My father
was a wholesale cloth merchant. He used to inform us whenever fancy cloths were available within the shop.
'Why should not I design it myself', seeing the cloth the thought came to my
mind. There was only one showroom for readymade garments in the town, which
used to make us greedy by showing its stylish and colourful garments. We were
almost lower-middle-class people(still.I am the same), so it was not possible for us to buy expensive things daily or monthly.
When I illustrated my design before tailor, he was not ready to stitch, and
mocked also at me. According to my idea, shirt must be gray and will have
design of blue on it and the pants/jeans would be vice versa. I persisted continuously and he was convinced
finally. In this way I opened my innings. Before this I used to get my
school-bags and sweaters (designed by me) stitched/woven by my mother or
sisters.
One day I
was in a tailor's shop for getting repaired my canvas jeans’ zip. After repair
I asked how much money I had to pay? He told with a miny smile that money did
not matter but your heavy jeans destroyed two of my needles, give me two rupees only. By saying so he
touched my heart. It was beginning of a friendship. In the beginning I
convinced my
friends-relatives-acquaintances somehow and decorated my designs on
their bodies. I remember I created some stylish Khadi(kind of an Indian cotton)
shirts within 50 rs of budget(including stitching charges). Naturally, whenever
any third person would praise the style/design, the shirt-owner returned to me
for a new design.
Then I
started to illustrate these designs in a diary. Also created a new name for
myself - KG Sanjay. Mostly I used to create one design for one particular person.
Sometimes people selected one from readymade designs.The same designs are now safe
in this diary. Most of designs are created in 1984-85. Pages of the lined diary
(I got as a gift with my first bicycles in 1979) got yellow and blury, Actually
At that time I could not know exactly what to do with diary and designs
thereafter! In fact even I did not know that
Fashion designing is a profession or there are some courses for it. NIFT
(National Institute of Fashion Technology) had been established later.
Thankfully I
got an app like SuperPhoto-Free which made these pictures quite clear,
attractive and impressive. Originally these designs had been created for Gents'
shirts and jackets, but these can be used
easily in place of each other. As far as I am concerned, can create a
few new designs from these and can also beautifully convert these into T-shirts or Ladies Garments. Few
of these designs I made with old and useless clothes like design no. 118 had
been made of two waste pants and an old jacket. You too can try this if you are
creative and imaginative somewhere inside. In inverted (white in black), there
are many designs where you can try painting, screen printing, patchwork,
embroidery etc. The original sketch is also there with each design.
See you again
with a new attempt. Of course, there will be a new job and most probably this
will be for women's clothings. It will take some time but hopefully something
new and different will come out.
The first
part of the old and yellow diary is in your hands now-
-Sanjay Grover
2017-06-06/13
