The GAN team, mostly female and run by women, places its trust in the artisan know-how and the capacity of Indian women as a decisive engine of entrepreneurial initiatives. On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2023, this March 8, we celebrate the GAN Women Unit and its artisans.
GAN’s innovative collections focus on sustainability, the recovery of traditional techniques and contemporary design. For this reason, the GAN Women Unit has been in operation since 2010, a group of women from rural India, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, who apply their embroidery skills to GAN collections. This initiative has a clear objective: to help them achieve independence and decision-making power through stable and well-paid work.
Currently, the GAN Women Unit is made up of 37 women. This empowering project has become a source of satisfaction for GAN and for the front-line designers who have involved their creations in the initiative. Very diverse authors, who share a passion for handmade pieces, research interest and desire to experiment with all kinds of techniques to expand the limits of creation: Patricia Urquiola, Neri&Hu, Raw Edges and Claire-Anne O’Brien.
BANDAS by Patricia Urquiola: the origin of the GAN Women Unit
The BANDAS collection, one of the most recognized in the GAN universe, marked the beginning of the GAN Women Unit more than a decade ago. Patricia Urquiola and Mapi Millet, creative director of GAN, sought a way to apply design to the skills of artisans who had been left without work after the closure of the local workshops that employed them. And so they came up with the idea of using embroidery, a technique that has become a valuable tool in the project along with other revisited traditional elaborations, such as crochet and needlepoint.
BANDAS took four years to see the light, since it had to adjust to different constraints: the pieces had to be rolled up to be easily transported and, in turn, allow women to work at home and sit knitting on their laps. What at first seemed like a limitation —each rug could not measure more than 60cm wide— ended up becoming the germ of modular rugs, an avant-garde concept that made BANDAS a success. These narrow rugs allow multiple combinations as they are joined by velcro strips and also function as covers for poufs, cushions and chaise longues. In its ten versions, BANDAS combines virgin wool in various thicknesses and three different techniques: hand loom, embroidery and crochet.
LAN by Neri&Hu, combining awareness of the East and West
Lan rugs bear the personal stamp of Neri&Hu, combining eastern and western sensibilities in a collection that focuses on contemporary design and traditional craftsmanship.
They are made using two different techniques: the base is a Glaoui, and on top of it, layers of hand-embroidered geometric motifs are superimposed that contribute to the maintenance of the GAN Women’s Unit.
BACKSTITCH by Raw Edges and the integrity of craftsmanship
The design of Backstitch, Raw Edges‘ first collaboration with GAN, surprises when discovering in detail the idea from which it starts: a rug that vindicates, in a delicate and elegant way, what often remains hidden. He achieves it through a change of perspective: turning –literally– traditional embroidery.
The collection is handmade by the GAN Women Unit using embroidery and handlooms, and features three different models (Busy, Calm and Composition) in two tones: Green and Brick.
KNITTED STOOLS by Claire-Anne O’Brien: experimenting with a new way of weaving
Irish designer Claire-Anne O’Brien works from her London studio with a commitment to using natural materials and local artisans. With a work characterized by the exploration of shapes and scales, playing with the properties of the materials themselves, her collaboration with GAN resulted in the KNITTED STOOLS. Inspired by different weaving and knitting techniques, they are seats made of intertwined tubes, smooth or ribbed, made of brightly colored wool. They are attached to a natural, resistant and casual ash wood leg structure.
The designs produced by the GAN Women Unit are the result of a very laborious process that involves learning to change the scale and materials, adjusting the designs to the different supports, adapting the artisan knowledge to the product’s requirements, controlling the finishes, etc… The initiative contributes to the development of methodologies and new knowledge, in such a way that artisan skills are revalued and contemporary design broadens perspectives.
