INK Jaipur X Maximiliano Modesti: Asian Paints’ Wallcoverings Bead Indian Crafts Into Modern Elegance

Mumbai-based Les Atèliers 2M‘s French founder Maximiliano Modesti, bedazzles wallcoverings in his signature style for Asian Paints’ INK Jaipur. This beaded collection features a gamut of 76 patterns to be exact of wallcoverings, with a few as sequels from the erstwhile collaboration between the duo, while the rest borrowed from the country’s blooming shrubbery. The wallpapers’ hand-block printed patterns, intricately etched with bugle beads, reflect Modesti’s native origins in fashion and textile while paying homage to the slow and interminable Indian crafts. These wallcoverings carry Modesti’s flamboyance and Indian artisans’ traditional craft legacy, in today’s fleeting digital prints.

INK- an Asian Paints borough and Modesti’s brainchild, launched in 2022, at the Asian Paints atelier in Jaipur with a debut collection curated by the modesti himself. Modesti’s idea behind INK was to allow the artisans to adopt and resuscitate the traditional craft while conferring them with supplies, time, and space to practice and perfect it. His work spanning of two decades between Mumbai and Paris begot Indian traditional artistry to Europe’s crème de la crème fashion houses like Hermès, Chanel, Azzedine Alaïa, and Stella McCartney. 

Since its unveiling, INK Jaipur has been a practice ingrained in recognizing the deep-rooted cultural aspect of Indian crafts and their ancestries. These crafts serve as heirlooms, bequeath livelihood and joie de vivre to the practising artisans, who toil persistently shrouded against the polished flashy smithereens. INK’s, artisans handcraft every patch from scratch, with a single metre taking over a hundred hours. Consequently, these pieces sonorously narrate the regal records of India’s rich legacy in block printing and embroidery, while referencing Modesti’s travels to borrow the nuanced charm from the global design styles.

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Blooming under Modesti’s artsy conceptualization, the nouveau wallcovering designs orchestrate a summit between India’s sacred flora and the gilded allure of the 18th-century German Rococo style. At Asian Paints’ Jaipur atelier, the artisans revive the venerable bead embroidery techniques, utilizing them to knottily embellish the hand-block printed silhouettes of the trees. The assemblage features an abstract take on nature’s sorcery; of altering peony petals to undulating terrains of the arid Rajasthani desert. 

The design features a serene milieu with neutral tones and gilded dapples drawing glittering references from the Art Deco style of the 80s. The pattern labelled, ‘Peonies and Shadow Lights’ is a sequel to the formerly abstracted ‘Wonderland’ series. With silhouettes of peonies and twines of leaves unfurling against a beige backdrop, these wallcoverings are perfect for any space with a subtle glitzy glam vibe. The ensuing pattern labelled, ‘Desert Flower Palash’ transpires, underscoring India’s reverence towards nature and its beliefs of trees bolster the seed of life. It features a fiery orange background with Palash leaves thronging every corner, telling tales of the red beadings that sparkle in honour of the wallcovering’s ostentatious character.

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Maximiliano Modesti’s ardent pursuit of the shrouded Indian crafts tucked in the crevices of lofty modern walls is tactile even in his other pet project ‘Kalhath Institute’- a non-profit establishment steadfastly fostering the eminence of Indian arts. Inevitably, his INK Jaipur collab collection fuses the crème de la crème of Indian artists by coalescing traditional techniques on voguish designs.