Gunjan’s Strive for Excellence

Sumana Mukherjee
6 days ago
4 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

On the occasion of National Handloom Day 2025, the Government of India and Shri Giriraj Singh, Hon’ble Minister of Textiles, presented Gunjan Jain, founder of Vriksh Designs, with the prestigious National Handloom Award 2024 for Design Development in the Handloom Sector. She also received recognition from the Hon’ble President of India, Shrimati Droupadi Murmu, along with co-national awardees at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi. In this conversation, Gunjan kindly shares how this recognition helps her take Vriksh’s work forward with Indian textiles.

Sumana: Heartiest congratulations Gunjan on this brilliant win. How do you see this prestigious award helping your work with the artisanal community?

Gunjan: It's a lovely feeling to have this recognition from the Government of India alongside completing 17 years of my work. It's quite similar to what I had shared earlier about my weavers receiving praise on our collaborative work. I'm hoping it will carve a path for many more designers to explore work in the heritage craft sector.

Also it provides a lot of re-assurance to our team that comprises of designers, weavers and everyone in the our community on how important innovation is in the entire process of bringing a craft or a handwoven technique back to life, especially if it has been challenging to have a continuous thread in the market for either competition from fake power loom replicas being sold, or the fact that the designs are no more desired by a modern market, or probably because the material is no longer available. For example, thick cotton saris are a bit of a challenge in the market now, which wasn't the case back in the days. This award certainly helps us believe that we could step in and bridge significant gaps with innovation, not just in design but also in terms of materials and connecting new markets.

Sumana: How has Vriksh’s journey been so far this year?

Gunjan: It has been really exciting, kind of a roller-coaster ride but in a good way, with several experiments that we've delved into. Textile Art has long been a part of my dream and this year we've been able to bring forth two shows on this. One is ‘Voyages’ where we collaborated with Kerala-based mural artist Suresh Muthukulum, who worked with his paintings on our textile art pieces. Together the idea was to showcase both Odisha and Kerala's histories of maritime trade with Southeast Asia, with a contemporary narrative.

We were thrilled to open the Voyages show at the India Habitat Center which emerged as a great success. As we speak, there is another one happening at The Kunj in New Delhi, which I have named ‘Bali Jatra’. This is again something that I've been working towards since 2016-17. I've brought together a collection with some very old pieces sourced and collected from Indonesia that shows the link which has inspired us to do our contemporary work in Odisha, with a focus on Textile Art.

Besides the lessons accumulated from these experiences, we've diversified from saris to garments. And that's a really challenging aspect in terms of sizing which is non-existent in saris (that’s what I love about it). We've designed ‘Karwaan’— a comfortable garment collection juxtaposing Japanese-inspired free-size style with the classic Indian cuts. It's an interesting fusion not just with the contemporary storytelling textiles that we are known for but also at the silhouette level. We launched this collection in July 2025 at the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In terms of textiles we continue to experiment with Ikat and Jala techniques. We also went back to our story board and reconnected with our Kotpad weavers on a beautiful garment collection. We've just launched our physical store in New Delhi at The Kunj—again a dream come true especially for small businesses like ours where brick and mortar shops are extremely expensive to afford. This is quite a milestone for us and we hope that everyone comes to our store.

Sumana: This edition of Kriti magazine is a Wedding Edit and Vriksh has stunning collections that could elevate any occasion. What would Gunjan pick from Vriksh's collection for a wedding trousseau?

Gunjan: For me weddings have always been about carrying oneself the way one is, rather than trying to look like someone else. So I would say pick your favorites from Vriksh.

One that quickly comes to my mind is our classic Navagunjara series on pure Tussar silk and we've brought out the real gold colour of it. The saris have a subtle shimmer and flamboyant pallus adorned with mythical motifs.

For occasions like cocktail parties, our latest Raag collection would be a great choice. It has bold and colourful statement pieces. The best part is you can team a Raag sari with a jacket or with an overcoat, paired with a gorgeous blouse. It gives you that liberty to experiment and style yourself the way you'd like to.

Among the whirlwind of creations and success that Gunjan has been going through with Vriksh, it’s natural to expect a designer dealing with organised chaos. But it’s still the same soft-spoken, supportive and creative Gunjan I have been interacting with since the beginning of our journey, with just a lot more contribution to the world of Indian textiles.