Two interior designers come together with Bharat Floorings and Tiles to create capsule collections of tiles

Comprising Mughal motifs and Central Asian patterns and using the cast-cement tiling technique, two new collections of floor and wall tiles bring together cultural and technical influences

It began on a boat. Pavitra Rajaram, the designer behind the Silk Route-inspired aesthetic of the home lifestyle store Good Earth, was en route to Alibaug. Also on board was the vice-chairman of Bharat Floorings & Tiles (BFT), Firdaus Variava, a firm friend and occasional professional associate. Rajaram had been an avid fan of BFT’s range of cement-cast offerings, employing the tiles in her interior projects in a manner that Variava considered to be particularly “innovative.” “That day, we made a pact to work together,” Rajaram recalls. Over ten years later, that pact has finally come to fruition as Farsh, one of two bold new tile collections commemorating BFT’s centennial year. 

Reimagining classical motifs

Farsh is a feat of restrained opulence, featuring hand-drawn motifs inspired by the colours and forms of the Mughal Gardens. The cypress is pared back to a spade-like silhouette, perfectly complementing an undulating poppy in vivid red. The geometry of the Central Asian suzani textile is reimagined in hushed monochrome. “There is a lot of negative space,” Rajaram adds, “The idea was that you could use these classical motifs, but by giving it that space and by giving it the geometric form and repetition, you could also create a very modern idiom.”

Rajaram’s collection is designed to be incisive: you could replace a few tiles on an existing monochromatic spread with a couple of eye-catching cypresses or poppies, and they’d blend in perfectly. “It’s a way of renewing without getting rid of everything,” she shares. “It gives the reins to the hands of the person who is actually going to live with that floor, taking it back to the old way in which things were done–they were personal and created for specific spaces.”

Working around spaces and energies

While Rajaram finds inspiration in history, Sarah Sham, lead designer at Essajees Atelier, has a keen finger on the pulse of contemporary design. Sham follows trends; not in the sense that she mimics what’s popular, but that she is able to identify exactly what’s trending in the market, and then purposefully turn it around on its head. The Angel Eye collection was a response to the narrative of “nazar” or the “evil eye” that drove most of Sham’s conversations with clients.

“A lot of people live in fear of the evil eye,” the designer expresses, “Even as designers, we’re designing specific types of front doors because clients feel like it will reduce the amount of ‘nazar’ coming in. But the idea of someone else having control of what can go right or wrong in your life is not something that I personally believe in.”

The geometric shapes of the traditional evil eye motif are reimagined as vibrant, almost fluid forms. Each set of tiles is named after an inspirational woman; and each design is a bright, bold narrative in its own right. “If you feel good, you’re in a good headspace, and you’re feeling mentally strong, then nothing and no one else's negative energy should come in the way of your path,” adds Sham, “The idea is that this tile is so energetic and so bright and so fun that it creates good energy in its space. It does not wards off the evil eye, but cancels the concept of the evil eye.”

Going beyond commerce

As centenary collections, Farsh and Angel Eye both perfectly exemplify the breadth that Bharat Floorings & Tiles covers in its range. “Our core audience is largely  designers,” says Variava, “They really span a wide gamut–we have the kind of architects and interior designers who are very traditional, and then we also have the young ones who are looking for modern designs and trendy stuff. Pavitra's range really is very timeless; it would go well with a boutique hotel, or a chic restaurant, and Sarah's would be very much at home in a modern apartment.”e

For the designers, however, commerce is secondary to the role that design could play in the contemporary landscape. “For cultures such as ours, which are oral cultures, our history is very much embedded in design,” says Rajaram, “Design has far greater reach and relevance as a recording of societies than we give it credit for. As we talk about issues of sustainability, this idea of design as a repository of human experience is a critical part of that conversation. This is where our stories are told.”

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