I have to say that I really admire this girl named Emilie Ristevski. I’ve been following her Instagram for months and I really heart her soft colored pictures. I saw the pictures she’d taken during her trip in India and I was amazed. I’d seen a lot of photos of India, but I never saw India captured in a soft and pastel mood like the ones Emilie had.

I asked her if she could share us about her experience in India. So, here’s Emilie and her story about her India trip. :)

  

 

 

I am a designer-maker, currently studying design and living in Sydney, Australia. I like to draw, design and make things with my hands. I major in ceramic and textile design, and have a love for creating and communicating visual stories through design, styling and photography, and documenting my creative findings and inspiration through Instagram.

 

 

I’ve always been fascinated with India, the bright, colourful and vibrant culture has been something I’ve always been inspired and drawn to. I had an opportunity to travel there to study and explore traditional Indian textiles which was an chance I did not want to miss. My trip started in Mumbai, from there I travelled northwest to the state of Gujarat, which was where the majority of my trip was spent. It was an incredible experience, the people, the colours, the food, and all the amazing visual inspiration in every place you looked. Every second there was something incredible I wanted to photograph, for myself it really was very visually overwhelming and inspiring. Being able to explore and document my experiences in different ways, as well as being introduced into traditional Indian textile techniques was very exciting. Towards the end of my trip I also travelled to Udiapur, Agra and Delhi. It is such a large and diverse country, if I was there for longer I would have loved to travel to all the places I missed in between, and I definitely can not wait to go back.

 

 

 

 

My favourite place I visited was Bhuj in the Kutch District, a smaller city on the very northwest side of India, boarding Pakistan. It is full of traditional crafts and artisans, streets filled with tiny market stalls and crowded people, and an amazing sense of communal living. The culture, traditions and most of all the people are so enlightening, I felt very lucky to be able to meet such incredible artisans and be welcomed into their family homes for them to share their traditions and techniques. Bhuj is were I was introduced to a range of Indian textile traditions such as block printing, dying with natural dyes such as indigo and madder, bandhani, and many types of traditional embroidery and weaving. Learning and understanding these traditions has strongly impacted my view on design, and I am excited to some how explore these concepts through my work in the future.