HAPPY MONDAY!

Meditate, levitate, animate. Brilliant advice for a grey Monday morning (Hello London, this is summer? really?). I spotted this painting over on Prash's blog and almost want to use it as a happy little screensaver. Prash's art is always gorgeously intricate yet never overwhelming - there's something super-calming about his style. He sketches extensively throughout his travels around the world, stopping here and there to illustrate children's books or design murals for hippy dippy restaurants in Goa.

PRASH'S MURAL AT 'BAGGIES' AT BETALBATIM, GOA

"YUP, I MADE THIS". PRASH OUTSIDE 'BAGGIES'.

Prash also exhibits at a brilliant Bangalore store called the Plantation House (I'll post more on that lovely fashion/art/homeware store soon), and these images are from a previous exhibition called The Blue Matchbox.

SO FAKE

Bonkers Indian fashion label Sofake (created by Mumbai-based chicks Sukriti Grover and Sapna Bhavnani) showed a style during Lakme Fashion Week last month called Kathorian - which stamps the mask-like make up of a traditional Indian dance called Kathakali with the frou-frou frills and extravagant shapes of the Victorian era (I love the mish-mash of styles so much I've used a tiny snapshot in this blog's logo). Their runway stuff may be a little hard to wear when you pop to the shops for a pint of milk, but the Spring/Summer 2012 collection is black-and-white magic. 

And by a happy coinkidink, Kiran, who models the Spring/Summer stuff below, also did a brilliant job of dyeing my hair deep purple last year, as she works in Bhavnani's fab Mumbai hair salon called Mad or Wot.

TREASURES IN THE ATTIC

I lived in Mumbai in 2010, which sounds cool except I was stuck in the not-so-cool northern suburb of Andheri. Bandra is where it's at. It's a tiny little area jam-packed with more shops, restaurants, and bars than you'd know what to do with and in most cafes in the middle of the day, you'd find a motley crew of musicians singing their latest compositions to each others, grumpy writers bashing on their laptops, and out-of-work actors gossiping about why Pinky made it into the latest Bollywood blockbuster and Bunty didn't. I love it. In my near-daily pilgrimage to Bandra, I almost always stopped at Attic, a teeny tiny store that has madly colourful mix of fashion, baubles, and home stuff.  

Check out this necklace they've just got in their store. I want it now!

ps: if you're ever in Bandra, have a drink and bite to eat in one of my favourite places ever - the Pali Village Cafe. It's all vintage greeny-blue inside, wrought iron, and sparkly lamps. I could seriously live there. 

ON TIME. ISH.

Indians are geniuses at many things but being on time really isn't one of them. I could have read War and Peace a hundred times over in the time I've spent waiting for my brethren who run on what creative studio Hyphen calls Indian Stretchable Time. 

The ish watch with its off-kilter numbers brilliantly pokes fun at Indians' perennial lateness. Hyphen may only be a year old, and this is its first baby, but if co-founder and former advertising guru Prasanna Sankhe keeps inventing products like this, I can't wait to see what's next. Will the watch help anyone be on time for a change? We'll have to wait and see I guess.   

SITA SINGS THE BLUES

Nina Paley has got to be one of my favourite animators. I've been re-watching her brilliant mash-up of Hindu mythology and blues music called Sita Sings the Blues, based on the ancient Hindu story of Rama and Sita. 

It's an epic story but here's the crash course: he's a god, she's his queen; she gets kidnapped by a demon; he saves her but then tests their marriage by making her walk through fire to prove her innocence. (Not such a feminist, that Rama.) 

While travelling in India after her own marriage fell apart, Nina mixed slices of her own life with those of Rama and Sita's to create a genius modern take on an old story, with some moody blues music thrown in. 

Paley's animation style changes wildly throughout the film, from scratchy basic line drawings of her life in New York to sumptuous, intricate sketches when she cuts to Rama and Sita, but somehow it all hangs together. These are a couple of the gorgeous snapshots, but though the images are lush, the film's even better.

RAMA, HANUMAN (KIND OF LIKE HIS JEEVES), AND SITA

LAKSHMI, THE WIFE OF VISHNU THE CREATOR. (ALSO THE NAME OF MY MAMA!)

PEOPLE POWER

WETHEPPL is the brainchild of a groovy group of Mumbai hipsters. They're sort of like a bunch of mad, creative scientists who experiment with ideas on fashion, music, and poetry, amongst other things. And their latest spin on Indian textiles is making me hyperventilate with its gorgeousness. First up, check out this buttery soft shirt called the 'Camiz'. 

It mixes up the group's "favourite elements of the lightest shirt, kurta, and sweatshirt." Depending on the style you want to rock, you could be The Doctor, the Architect, the Writer, the Professor, the Engineer, the Ninja - or if you want to work the dead celeb vibe, go for Che Guevara or Michael Jackson. 

That was just a taster. Now, one of WETHEPPL's fashion lines NorBlack NorWhite has just launched its spring line full of these heart-stopping pretties. So far, they've only been stocking their goodies in India, Japan and Canada, but world domination probably isn't too far away. 

Ok this next one's cheating because it was from Autumn-Winter 2011, but it's too lush to leave out. 

SUPER-WEARABLE. OK, MINUS THE GOLD FACEPLATE.

MASABA MASALA

Tell me this pic doesn't make you want to slap a crazy circus hat on your pretty little head? Ok, I might be alone in wanting to parade around with a tutti-frutti cone on my noggin, but this designer chick, Masaba, twists Indian clothes into some mad hot shapes.

Anyone who can reinvent the sari (a design classic if there ever was one) is a freaking genius in my book. She's got Mumbai fashion types all hot and sweaty over her designs, and too right - check out more of her stuff below. 

(psst: a little red-hot gossip - she's also the daughter of West Indian cricketing superstar Viv Richards. If you don't know who he is, educate yourself, fools!)

MONKEY MAGIC

DEATH STAR AHOY!

How's about some big love for our furry friends over at Chimp?

This Mumbai-based team come up with images that are totally bananas (lame pun fully intended) and slap them on t-shirts, mugs, and bags.

Their mix of comic-book kitsch and the trademark Indian love of puns rock my world. 

WOO HOO, HERE GOES!

Well hello there, and welcome to my blog on Indian design. By day, I'm a science writer, and I make my living writing about why the earth is burning to a crisp, why the bees are all dying, or what new superbug is going to terrorise our planet. Cheery stuff. 

But under my super-nerd disguise, I'm a secret design addict. By that I don't just mean the super-pricey stuff of the Eames lounger/Noguchi lamp/Saarinen table ilk. Super sleek, shabby chic, distressed, vintage, contemporary - I love it all and I'm greedy for more. 

I've spent most of my life hopping between India and the UK, and have seen how  India - after opening its doors to the rest of the world about a decade ago - has drawn in influences from East and West and created a mad mish-mash of contemporary global design with an Indian twist. This is what I'm going to be writing about here - the artists and designers who are creating a whole new wave of Indian design.