Rahul Mishra closed FDCI's Hyundai India Couture Week on Wednesday with a show built around a presentation format. By the time the last performer stepped back from Sobhita Dhulipala's silhouette, it was clear the finale had gone for something closer to a live performance than a conventional presentation. Our Editor-in-Chief, Chaiti Narula, for the record, had been hoping he would bring back ‘Hum Log’ instead. She can keep hoping. Devi is what showed up!
Images Via: Gulshan Sachdeva
Devi, or as Mishra has more formally titled it, Devi: The Eternal Muse, made its debut months earlier at Paris Haute Couture Week inside the Collège des Bernardins, where it drew Isha Ambani and Cardi B to the front row and placed Rahul Mishra among the season's more discussed couture names, in company with Dior, Chanel and Balenciaga. While a bit of controversy followed, given that Tarun Tahiliani and Gaurav Gupta had released a collection on similar lines, the approach to fabric innovation and embroidery is what deserves merit. The idea behind it, as he has explained it, began with a comparison to Michelangelo's sculpture, often taught as an early reference point for how the human form is revered in art. Mishra's counterpoint was that Indian temple carvers at Ajanta, at Ellora, across the subcontinent's sandstone and basalt sanctuaries, were rendering apsaras and devis with a different logic, well before that, where jewellery did the work that fabric does elsewhere.
Images Via: Gulshan Sachdeva
Devi was paired it with pieces from his Festive Couture line, which gave the evening a second, more familiar register alongside Devi's temple-inspired pieces. Floral motifs ran across hand-painted textiles, zardozi embroidery built up in the dense, layered style he is known for, and bridal silhouettes carried handcrafted detailing. Set beside Devi's more sculptural looks, this half of the show read as the occasion-wear counterpart, closer to what an Indian bride would actually wear. We ex-edged it. After all, FDCI’s HYUNDAI India Couture Week is meant for the business of fashion for the bridal season that follows.
Images Via: Gulshan Sachdeva
What Delhi got on Wednesday was a different version of that Paris moment. Mishra showed the original Paris pieces alongside creations developed since then.
Sobhita Dhulipala closed the show. She first appeared in an ivory-and-champagne ensemble, its bodice built from crystal beadwork layered to mimic jewellery. Then came the part that has already been clipped and shared online since Wednesday night. Performers walked onto the ramp, with her still standing there, and draped a heavily embellished wraparound lehenga over the ensemble she was already wearing.
Images Via: Gulshan Sachdeva
The crowd for this one was thick enough that getting a clear line of sight was its own challenge for most of the room. Divya B Mishra helped make space for us to actually watch the sequence properly, which we are grateful for, since this was not a show you wanted to be craning over someone's shoulder for.
The word sringar applies here in its more literal sense: the ceremonial dressing and adornment of a figure, performed live.
It is also worth noting that Sobhita has trained for years in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, forms where gesture and adornment carry real weight. That background likely made the sequence feel like she already had a working vocabulary for it.
Images Via: Gulshan Sachdeva
Indian couture has often been covered abroad as craft dressed up for Western silhouettes, its embroidery treated as decoration on top of a garment rather than the point of it. Mishra's approach leans the other way, treating the ornament itself as the substance.
There is also talk of a possible in-store showcase down the line, giving people a chance to see the Paris collection up close outside a ramp setting. Whether that materialises remains to be seen, but it would be worth the visit if it does.
Whether FDCI’s HYUNDAI India Couture Week's format makes room for more of this kind of staging next season remains an open question worth watching.
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Rahul Mishra closed FDCI's Hyundai India Couture Week on Wednesday with a show built around a presentation format. By the time the last performer stepped back from Sobhita Dhulipala's silhouette, it was clear the finale had gone for something closer to a live performance than a conventional presentation. Our Editor-in-Chief, Chaiti Narula, for the record, had been hoping he would bring back ‘Hum Log’ instead. She can keep hoping. Devi is what showed up!
Images Via: Gulshan Sachdeva
Devi, or as Mishra has more formally titled it, Devi: The Eternal Muse, made its debut months earlier at Paris Haute Couture Week inside the Collège des Bernardins, where it drew Isha Ambani and Cardi B to the front row and placed Rahul Mishra among the season's more discussed couture names, in company with Dior, Chanel and Balenciaga. While a bit of controversy followed, given that Tarun Tahiliani and Gaurav Gupta had released a collection on similar lines, the approach to fabric innovation and embroidery is what deserves merit. The idea behind it, as he has explained it, began with a comparison to Michelangelo's sculpture, often taught as an early reference point for how the human form is revered in art. Mishra's counterpoint was that Indian temple carvers at Ajanta, at Ellora, across the subcontinent's sandstone and basalt sanctuaries, were rendering apsaras and devis with a different logic, well before that, where jewellery did the work that fabric does elsewhere.
Images Via: Gulshan Sachdeva
Devi was paired it with pieces from his Festive Couture line, which gave the evening a second, more familiar register alongside Devi's temple-inspired pieces. Floral motifs ran across hand-painted textiles, zardozi embroidery built up in the dense, layered style he is known for, and bridal silhouettes carried handcrafted detailing. Set beside Devi's more sculptural looks, this half of the show read as the occasion-wear counterpart, closer to what an Indian bride would actually wear. We ex-edged it. After all, FDCI’s HYUNDAI India Couture Week is meant for the business of fashion for the bridal season that follows.
Images Via: Gulshan Sachdeva
What Delhi got on Wednesday was a different version of that Paris moment. Mishra showed the original Paris pieces alongside creations developed since then.
Sobhita Dhulipala closed the show. She first appeared in an ivory-and-champagne ensemble, its bodice built from crystal beadwork layered to mimic jewellery. Then came the part that has already been clipped and shared online since Wednesday night. Performers walked onto the ramp, with her still standing there, and draped a heavily embellished wraparound lehenga over the ensemble she was already wearing.
Images Via: Gulshan Sachdeva
The crowd for this one was thick enough that getting a clear line of sight was its own challenge for most of the room. Divya B Mishra helped make space for us to actually watch the sequence properly, which we are grateful for, since this was not a show you wanted to be craning over someone's shoulder for.
The word sringar applies here in its more literal sense: the ceremonial dressing and adornment of a figure, performed live.
It is also worth noting that Sobhita has trained for years in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, forms where gesture and adornment carry real weight. That background likely made the sequence feel like she already had a working vocabulary for it.
Images Via: Gulshan Sachdeva
Indian couture has often been covered abroad as craft dressed up for Western silhouettes, its embroidery treated as decoration on top of a garment rather than the point of it. Mishra's approach leans the other way, treating the ornament itself as the substance.
There is also talk of a possible in-store showcase down the line, giving people a chance to see the Paris collection up close outside a ramp setting. Whether that materialises remains to be seen, but it would be worth the visit if it does.
Whether FDCI’s HYUNDAI India Couture Week's format makes room for more of this kind of staging next season remains an open question worth watching.
TO BE CONTINUED, FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.
This is where the surface ends and the reporting begins.
The complete piece, the full archive, and access to The French Press Circle. Reporting answerable only to its readers.
Already a subscriber ?
Login
Read these on the house, with our compliments.
A selection from the current issue, open to all readers. Read them in full. The rest is one decision away.
