Kamal Ghorui
What started as a love pilgrimage soon turned into a design one, as Jaipur had other plans. This was the situation for London-based designer Rosanna Falconer, who arrived in Jaipur for her honeymoon and soon fell into a full-blown creative obsession carrying centuries of heritage, culture, and regality.The Pink City began less like a destination to her and more like a creative voyage, as Rosanna fell in love with Jaipur’s colourful block prints. Over time, she found herself deeply drawn towards the colours and culture and translated her watercolours into the language of traditional block printing.With a 17-year career in fashion, she transformed her aesthetic into a table linen designer and drew most of her inspirations from wild flowers and now the colours of Jaipur. This bridged the gap between London and Jaipur, which became the city she fell in love with. She fell in love with the culture so much that she ended up naming her daughter India.
(Image Credits: Instagram)
She arrived in the city in 2018 for her honeymoon and stayed in heritage hotels, wandered around the colour-stroked streets, and tasted the true essence of Indian culture. But it was the people and the craft of the city that made her fall in love with Jaipur, which made her keep returning since then. Rosanna visited the local studios and observed the rhythm and precision of the craft, which transformed something inside her. She produced her first sample and created something that was more than her imagination. Since then, she has rearranged her professional engagements and started to incorporate this craft in design projects, homeware collections, and more.
According to a report in News18, she said, “Block printing is so embedded in Jaipur that you almost take it for granted. What shifted for me was not seeing the craft differently but finding my own way into it.”
(Image Credits: Instagram)
Understanding the making processThe journey of a single design starts with creating a moodboard, which includes gathering references for tone, the right colour, and a soft feeling that is drawn from nature. It revolves around petals, trees, and leaves. From there, she sketches by hand and layers it with watercolours before refining the design digitally. This artwork is then translated into wooden blocks, which are carved by hand, and is then printed against a white background. What she followed wasn’t a trend, but it was a transformation. She believed in a cross-cultural love affair in her professional space and traded it with perfection. Rosanna believed in line-lived-in beauty and proved that all it takes is just one trip to completely rewrite your life story and begin a new DNA.
