With around 55,000 thousand of them in use, they’ve become this really iconic piece of culture. Taxi drivers themselves are like peacocks; each driver is trying to outshine his rivals with a more attractive taxi. But with all the work they do to their cabs, the seat covers are the only thing no one seems to think about. The drivers just use whatever fabric when the seats need covering. And there's
nothing wrong with what they use. The designs are functional. But they're dull and forgettable. You see, design is taken for granted in India. Older generations don't understand it or recognise it as a proper profession or something worth studying. Design to them, just performs a function. They don't know it can create an impact. And with so few spaces for young people to show off their skills, it's hard to change that perception. We saw taxi-seats as the perfect platform to start showing India what design can do. So we started redesigning taxi-seats with young designers from Mumbai- using the fabric as their canvas, using design to create beautiful drawings and illustrations that tell beautiful stories centered around Mumbai. We have now done over a 100 taxis in India. Here, on instagram and tumblr, is where we will be sharing them with the world. We aren't stopping- don't worry. We're in the process of raising funds to have more taxi's fitted with the work of more young Indian designers. It’s really exciting to be able to help young people in India have their work be seen and understood. These Taxi Fabrics have the power to turn design into what was once just practical and impersonal, into what the rest of the world see as a vital ingredient in modern commerce and thinking. Two years into this, we have come a full circle and launched our first Taxi Fabric Store - accessible by all, to shop their own Taxi Fabrics as products and fabrics by the meter.
