Indian craft takes a bow! Ashiesh Shah’s vision is the real showstopper at Paris Design Week

Beauty is a strange thing. It is said that it hides in the eye of the beholder. But who is the beholder and who decides what meets their eye? When architect and EDIDA winner Ashiesh Shah started his design atelier in 2017, the craft landscape of India still operated in the margins, visible only to select connoisseurs.

By inviting karigars into the process of making, the designer has in many ways redefined what we perceive as beautiful. Ashiesh’s work is unapologetically Indian – tracing traditional craftsmanship to bring to the world stage stories and narratives often tucked away in the hinterlands of the subcontinent.

A universal truth  

At the Soft Power exhibit, Ashiesh Shah Atelier’s exquisite wares hold a powerful restraint, symbols of an India spun in cosmos and craft – Channapatna Chair, Naga Bench, Garbhagriha Mirror and more. You are drawn into the hush of wood, metal and mythology.  

Inspired by the mystical musings of the universe, Ashiesh’s work honours the multiplicity of hands that shape stories and history pressed into function. A pulse of experimentation, a reverence for the handmade courses through his collections. Past and future intertwined. His oeuvre spans the breadth of India, wrangling the boundaries of scale and making space for lesser-known crafts.  

Making the invisible visible  

But what does it mean for contemporary objects that hold Indian tacit knowledge to be displayed in Paris? Well, the gallery and Ashiesh’s portfolio share a thread in common: an essential savoir-faire. Yes, Féau Boiseries is a gallery but is an artwork in itself – positioning as a reference point for the revitalisation of French style. Each wall of the gallery holds stories, almost brimming through the décoratifs or lined inside the panelling.  

However, the question remains – who decides what meets the eye of the beholder? Curating a panoply of beautiful objets d’art, Invisible Collection is an online platform for discovering collectibles around the globe designed by leading creatives and handcrafted by the finest artisans. They believe that design is a legacy of ideas – on a constant search for the heirs to masters of the yesteryears.  

It is only right to see Ashiesh Shah’s work during Paris Design Week 2025 in a metropolis where history and art have always been entangled. The centre stage of polemic movements and traditions from the chinoiserie of Rococo to the tongue-in-cheek shenanigans of Dadaism. So if you find yourself in the City of Lights, stop for a moment at the Soft Power exhibit. Notice the curves of the Otlo sofa, think of its namesake, the traditional Gujarati threshold. When the Garbhagriha mirror’s brilliant blue centre inevitably arrests your attention or the Naga bench regales you with its resplendence, think of what we consider beautiful. Is beauty really only held in the eyes of the beholder or is it something more inextricable? Perhaps beauty, like art, design and stories, finds a conduit of expression from muses to mavericks to how material meets memory.  

Wondering what won Ashiesh Shah the EDIDA in 2024? Meet the winners of the 23rd edition of ELLE DECO International Design Awards India 2024