India

Between 2000-2008 India's economic and political ascendancy were charted in the worlds press. This period of dynamism ushered in an increased sense of confidence, aspiration and pride in being Indian. This book is about the response of the design community to India's changing environment. It focuses on fashion, graphic and interior design as metaphors of the complex networks that constitute globalisation within key metropolitan centres of India. Examined within the context of their production and consumption, and through their economic, social, political and cultural underpinnings, a picture emerges which conveys how designers grapple with issues of identity and globalisation, nationhood and modernity, ethics and commerce.
Divia Patel is a writer, lecturer and curatorial assistant in the Indian and South-East Asian Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Her main interests are questions of ethnicity, modernisation, and Westernisation in India and their impact on caste, language, and religion. In collaboration with Rachel Dwyer she has researched and written on the influence of the Indian Cinema on the country's traditional culture.