Chennai designer Neesha Amrish’s handmade stoles are now at the Van Gogh museum store in Amsterdam

Neesha Amrish with the stole that is now available at the Van Gogh Museum shop
| Photo Credit: RAVINDRAN R

The Van Gogh Museum shop in Amsterdam is awash with colours synonymous with the painter’s works. The shelves and nooks are brimming with collectibles, clothes, toys, ceramics and a plethora of artefacts primarily in teal and yellow. And if you look closer, among them you will find stoles with a name from India — Aeshaane by Neesha Amrish. The Chennai-based designer, who launched her label in 2008, recently created a line of Ahimsa silk stoles for the museum. “Two years back, the Van Gogh Museum wrote to me commissioning these stoles. They wanted me to take one of Van Gogh’s paintings and make it my own, give it my touch,” she says. 

She chose Almond Blossom. The painting depicts the flowering branches of an almond tree and it is known to signify hope and new life. “The leaves fall and it’s a rebirth of sorts. It resonates with the story of artisans who have daily challenges and it’s almost like they shed their leaves and get back on their feet,” she says. But the process of recreating the Almond Blossom was not easy. 

There was a lot of back and forth, and signing of documents. Then came creative challenges. It is labour-intensive, she says. Her artisan first drew the motif with chalk, then painted the flowers and stalks inside, followed by a bit of layering to add depth to motifs like in the original and then finally he painted the blue around it.

“The museum wanted every scarf to be identical. Every bark, every stroke had to be identical,” she says. With hand painting, it was impossible to get them to look identical. So, Neesha and her team had to create hand blocks to make the scarf. 

“People normally write down recipes for food. We have a recipe for the blue that we used. We stick to that formula as the colours have to match. It’s a lot like cooking,” she laughs, adding, that it is bucket-dyed and handmade. As a result, it took two years to create the prototype.

“In the original work, the design is intricate and my design is more bold,” says Neesha of her signature style. There are big off-white and light ochre flowers and moss-green leaves on a background of teal blue.

Now, it takes her team 15 days to make one stole which measures 27 inches by 80 inches. “For the first batch we sent 30 pieces. These are not mass produced,” she adds.

While Neesha operates out of her studio in Neelankarai, working to the rhythm of the waves, her artisans are in Serampore (West Bengal) where they work happily with the breeze from the Hooghly river caressing them.

Earlier, they were in Perungudi. But when the pandemic hit, they wanted to go back home. And then, one day they made a collective call to Neesha from Serampore suggesting that they move the workshop there. “The workshop is my life, my daughter was literally raised there,” says Neesha, adding that it was not an easy decision to make. “But that is home for them, and they are happy there and I did not want to take that away from them,” smiles Neesha, adding that because of this decision she was able to get more women artisans to join as they could live with their families in their hometown and work from there. 

Neesha also travels to Serampore few times in a year to discuss ideas and work closely with them. The team is tech savvy and they video call each other. Things happen at an easy pace. “There’s no rush to create, which I really like. Sometimes when I am walking with my daughter, we collect leaves and give them to the block maker. We don’t follow seasons or trends. We create what genuinely inspires me. It’s soul satiating and allows us time to work around our families,” she adds.