She is an artist who shoulders her work every day, as do other San Antonio women fortunate enough to buy her creations.
I first met Nazneen Husain at the Asian Festival earlier this year at the Institute of Texan Cultures. Her craft is redesigning fabrics, mostly Indian in origin, into beautiful, one-of-a-kind purses, messenger bags, totes, wristlets and pocket purses. I ‘d say, “You know the type,” but you can’t possibly, because each one is so amazingly unique. What makes them so is the fabrics she uses.
Nazneen takes dresses that have seen better days and reshapes them into bags that not only have function, but have soul. Where does she get the dresses? Nazneen says many are given to her by friends and strangers – people who know her work, and people who have learned of it and are inspired by it. She also acquires fabric when she travels to India. Nazneen says each region there has its own specialty.
Nazneen has seen the artisans of India. Their bead work is phenomenal, she says, but they are lacking because they scrimp in the lining and zipper departments. So, when the richly woven, brocaded, or intricately beaded fabrics are retired from the closet, Nazneen gathers them up and makes them new again.
“I see purses in them,” she says. Nazneen calls it ‘repurposing’.
She says some fabrics are made from wool and silk, leather or zari. Zari is made of tightly woven metallic threads that are brilliant in color and very durable. Nazneen says in the old days zari was made of real gold. When a garment was worn out, the women would burn the garment and keep the remaining gold.
Because the fabrics are ‘repurposed’, there is a history in each of her purses. Nazneen made several from one of her grandmother’s old dresses. She said it made her grandmother cry to see what she had created. She cried because she was no longer able to weave a fabric like that anymore, and it gave her such pleasure to see her own craftsmanship renewed.
Often Nazneen is asked to make a purse from recycled fabric the client brings in. When there is an emotional connection between the client and the fabric, the work is that much more rewarding for the artist.
Nazneen got her start after she made purses for a Muslin youth group fundraiser. She put them together from scraps she had at home. Somehow word got out, and before you know it she was holding a purse-party by request. That party netted her seed money and a glimpse of what could be: An independent businesswoman doing what she loves most.
Although supportive, some feared a Muslim woman would have a difficult time selling her purses at booths. But Nazneen says she “wants to be the smile of a veiled woman rather than the face of an oppressed woman.”
Nazneen was born in Hyderabad, A.P., India. Her family moved to the United States when she was seven years old. She was raised in South Carolina, moved a bit here and abroad before landing in San Antonio eight year ago. She says her mother, the ‘master of many’ who taught her to sew and cook, cries after each show. She is proud of Nazneen’s success, especially considering the stigma of women in her culture, Nazneen points out.
For a simple design, one purse takes roughly eight to eleven hours to sew, and that doesn’t even include the time it takes for the embellishments. “Even zipper pulls are embellished,” says Nazneen, who, from time to time, hires women in her community to do bead work and piece the purses together.
If you see her booth at one of several venues in the area – she will be at the Boerne Market Days on Sunday – stop in and visit with Nazneen. She is always happy to tell you the story behind the fabrics used in each purse.
