How Morii Design is preserving Indian craft with its ‘library of stitches’

Like much of what they do, the story of Ahmedabad-based Morii Design is one of persistence. The studio was founded in 2019 by Brinda Dudhat, a Textile Design graduate from the National Institute of Design (NID), with the idea of bringing traditional textiles to contemporary apparel. Kabir, her husband and co-founder and graphic lead of Morii Design, explains that its origins were the result of a “happy accident”. 

“Our first collection of garments launched during COVID, and we didn’t have many opportunities to showcase our work. We did a few shows but didn’t get the response we were hoping for.” In 2021, when Dudhat framed one of the jackets and posted it on Instagram, it caught the eye of Studio Hasta’s Nishil Shah, a Mumbai-based architect, who approached Morii to purchase the jacket panels as artworks for a corporate project. “The journey from clothing to textile art has been quite fascinating. Each visit to a museum has deepened our practice further. Trained as designers, pursuing art has been a very interesting and evolving path. It was a eureka moment to finally saw our practice through the right lens—realizing how our clothing carried such a painterly and artistic quality. That shift helped us understand where our work truly belongs.”

Since then, Morii Design (the name comes from the Japanese word ‘mori’, meaning ‘forest’) has created nearly 900 textile artworks and now collaborates with over 160 artisans across 12 villages in India. Their wall hangings blend traditional techniques, such as patchwork and embroidery from various craft clusters, with Morii Design’s signature abstract, undulating lines and spaces that look refreshingly modern. However, Dudhat faced resistance when she first sought out artisans to collaborate with.

She spent weeks traveling from village to village in Kutch, trying to convince people to work with her, but with no luck. When she came across a community of Jat women who specialise in cross-stich embroidery, she sat on a bike in peak summer and travelled every month to their remote village in the desert. “At first, they refused because they had a poor experience working with other groups in the past. But Brinda is persistent,” Kabir recalls. Over six months, in a deeply collaborative process, Dudhat and the artisans refined the work, workshopping and introducing minor tweaks to the designs, bit by bit. “The artisans were really excited because they were doing something different and getting paid for it.”

Morii Design’s approach to design involves identifying a craft cluster, studying their traditional pieces, and documenting and cataloguing every stitch they know. “We create new combinations with their pre-existing stitches, which allows them [the artisans] to retain their skills and knowledge while developing a new visual language,” explains Kabir. Currently, the studio’s mammoth and ever-growing stitch library comprises scores of stitches from various parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Bihar. “It’s a constantly expanding list. For example, we have eight to 10 individual stitches from the Rabari cluster, and we’ve achieved 67 combinations from those.”

While the stitch library is currently private, Morii Design plans to launch a programme in the future, which will involve releasing a group of stitches to the public from time to time so the styles of embroidery can have different applications. 

Every single artwork in Morii Design’s catalogue is original and one of a kind. Some limited-edition pieces may have the same base form, but each variation will carry different colours and stitches. “If you look at them together, you’ll find they are very different from each other. Like twins or triplets, they have their own individual identities,” Kabir adds.

The design process begins in the couple’s studio, which is on the first floor of their home in Gandhinagar. Dudhat creates a composition and marks out the stitch connotations with the colours and threads that should be used. Then, the base fabric is sent to the clusters, where they work on the piece for about six months. Managing a network of over 160 artisans across multiple regions might seem daunting, but Morii Design has developed a community-driven system that empowers artisans to take the lead, with coordinators from each village managing logistics themselves. “At first, we travelled to the villages to explain each project. Now, after four to five years, things work through WhatsApp,” says Kabir.

Morii Design’s work has had a ripple effect, expanding to other artisan communities. The Rabari cluster initially began with a group of seven artisans. As trust grew, they invited relatives from neighbouring villages to join. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, a craft cluster in Bihar that Dudhat had worked with previously contacted her, desperate for work. That marked the beginning of Morii Design’s work with the Sujni crafts cluster. “We found that a lot of people in rural India in the craft sector don’t have work and they really need it. We get a lot of work requests via Instagram and WhatsApp, but we currently have our hands full. We want to ensure we can sustain and support our existing artisans before taking on more,” Kabir explains. For these women, working with Morii Design is more than just about financial empowerment—it also improves their quality of life. “They don’t have to while away their time watching random news on TV. Embroidery is meditative, and they find it way more fulfilling while it makes them good money, which helps them support their kids studying in the cities.”

In some villages in Kutch, women now earn significantly more than their husbands, leading to a reversal in traditional gender roles—you’ll find men serving water to guests while the women socialise. “It’s a simple change in society that shows how when women have their own earnings and own way of living, men do bend. A lot of younger women are joining the clusters, and we already have master artisans from the younger lot who are doing some crazy experimental work with us.”

While so far their focus has been on textile art, Morii Design will soon be returning to their roots—this time, through saris featuring kantha work. “Brinda made some remarkable saris in the beginning, and whenever she wears them to our shows, people rave about them. The sari is an unstitched garment, so it’s still in our vocabulary,” Kabir says. Much like their wall hangings, each sari is a one-off wearable piece of art, never to be replicated.

As they continues to grow, the duo is also building their own physical space—a gallery and studio that will serve as a hub for their work. With a growing network of artisans and plans for a dedicated gallery, Morii Design is carving out its place in the contemporary textile world, proving that heritage techniques can evolve—and thrive—in today’s market.