An Appliqué Map to Celebrate Vogue at 10

Vogue India celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. For their bumper Anniversary Issue I was one of several women asked to create something beautiful to celebrate the milestone. Just like the playing cards for Architectural Digest, it was an open brief, so I had loads of ideas of what I could make! As all our collections are inspired by different parts of the world, I decided to create an appliqué world map, pieced together from scraps of Safomasi fabric.

Making the Appliqué Map

I began the process by figuring out the main details of the map along. Aastha, our intern this summer, helped by creating a map outline and making a few digital mock ups to try different approaches. Would it work having different colours for different continents? How big would the elements be? 

After getting a rough idea, we marked out the map onto white base fabric and started selecting fabric scraps. I decided the land would be best as different shades of green, and the scraps fairly small and angular. 

The main prints I used were Estuary Walk from our Salcombe Collection. Green Big Cat Camo, Shaken Leaves, Spotted Deer and Tiger Safari from our Tiger Safari Collection, and A Bird’s Eye View and Coconut Palm Pickers from our Alleppey Collection.

I cut appliqué webbing to shape, arranged the fabric pieces on top and then ironed them to stick.

The big challenge was deciding what to do for the background. I tried out a bold blue, using the Blue Stone Symbol fabric from our Kapadokya Collection.

I liked this, but wondered if it would be too overpowering. Then I tried a background pieced together from the intricately drawn sea in our Regatta fabric.

I really liked this, but worried that I didn’t have enough fabric, and as my idea was to make something beautiful from scraps, I didn’t want to cut up more. Instead, I decided to get Masterji to stitch wavy lines along the background, and around each fabric piece.

 

Thank you Megha and the Vogue India team for asking me to be part of your anniversary celebrations.

Top image courtesy Vogue India
Photographer: Kaushal Parikh
Location: Mukesh Mills, Mumbai