The recently concluded India Couture Week with its scintillating settings and royal themes has raised important questions as to why we are not diversifying and creating new markets.
If there’s one thing the video presentations at the recently concluded India Couture Week have said, it’s that designers are thinking gorgeous. From Falguni and Shen taking their collection to the Taj Mahal (a true feat, considering how famous the enemy is Babus In Gaurav Gupta’s Universal love show, shot at the Taj Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad, this season was all about location, location, location.
Shantanu and Nikhil shot for their lineup, Oasis in Jaisalmer’s Suryagarh. Varun Behl’s memory/mosaic came alive in Andaz Aerocity and Anju Modi’s The Eternal Story unfolded at The Banyan Farm on the outskirts of the capital. Rahul Mishra’s ‘Kam-Khab’ outing at the age of 300 mansion in Mandawa, Rajasthan.
The fact is that many of India’s most creative minds thought of such places at the same time. Especially when traveling is, to put it mildly, a little more difficult than it used to be. It shows what people have been feeling for some time now. Caged, cage. The designers chose to focus exclusively on the idea of travel as their backdrop as such places now offer safe and luxurious places and experiences, not to mention great wedding packages.
From Tarun Tahiliani’s ICW Collection
a hackneyed narrative
If you think I’ve held back from talking about fashion—after all, it’s an op-ed on a fashion week—you’re absolutely right. Because while capturing the zeitgeist, ensuring they keep their haute couture in the most luxurious settings, and showing how their dresses can be worn by brides, grooms, families and friends, our designers have collectively created from, have succumbed to the sin of equality.
Read also | India Couture Week: The brides of 2021 want more
Keeping a few aside, nearly all of the designers chose to portray some version of the how-to-luxury-wedding theme, where clothing fell into categories and stories took center stage. Except Tarun Tahiliani and Rahul Mishra, no one talked about the craft of textiles.
Which brings me to this: We look forward to taking pride in our traditional crafts, textiles and adornments. We are as quick as possible on social media to bring our deep work with India’s craft groups on every occasion. But the way we choose to market the beautiful results of all those painstaking efforts is through the hackneyed vision of matrimonial glamour. We tell stories that have nothing to do with the things we design and make.
Designers Kunal Rawal and Sonam Kapoor
The sin of equality appears in the legends. Its equipment is the following: long, long shots of beautiful models, their translucent scarf flight, representing the richness of the Indian flora rosehandjob Mogra, And Marigold scattered all around. Slow walkers are handsome men. And there are courtyards full of beautiful friends, dancing. plush moms and gracious dads in Haute Couture; Ornaments to ransom across the country. Everything is royal, or a version of.
Here, it is the workmanship of India that turns into obscurity. We saw a form of collective outrage when Sabyasachi’s Mass-Market H&M Collaboration was launched because it did not meet the made-up expectations of how India’s craft should be presented around the world. We don’t see anything like it when an entire Fashion Week dedicated to haute couture—a space where designers can and should explode with creativity—sells us a tired and similar vision of royal romance. Which harm is greater?
Is the future of our most creative minds and skilled hands tied to monopoly which is marriage Economy? Smart businessmen are innovative. They diversify and constantly create new markets. Look at Schiaparelli. Or Marc Jacobs. Closer to home, look to designers who create haute couture that isn’t remotely bridal or traditional. Whether or not they show up at Couture Week is unimportant, but they simply refuse to cater to old (and new) money and recognize the potential of high fashion’s informed, style-conscious, and aspiring young consumers. And they’re not the only ones we need to look far for.
A design from the collection of Rahul Mishra
time to stay away from vanilla
I often talk about respecting tradition but not sticking to it. Which isn’t really some mind-boggling new concept. But when I look at haute couture in India today, I see an irony emerging.
Our social media is really full of images of modern thoughts. There are heartwarming tales of LGBTQIA+ weddings, weddings where brides wear two-piece suits, middle-aged romance, and older people marrying for love and companionship. The conversation about shape has progressed to the point where designers are (slowly) getting better at characterizing models of different shapes and body structures. Jewelery labels are creating advertisements that challenge long-held beliefs. But our haute couture videos stubbornly depict only the most vanilla fiction. We have voluntarily imposed a brahminical contrast on our collective creativity in the name of trade. Since when has fashion become so weak, so sneaky?
If this were a regular, physical fashion presentation where only people who can afford wedding wear are invited, all I said would be irrelevant. But the migration to an all-access video format on social media has made it relevant even for those who can’t. And this means that designers now have an additional responsibility – towards the continuing development of artisanal sectors and working with craftsmen. He now has the power to set the tone. With this in mind, we need to ask whether marriage The market, while it can sustain us financially, is sufficient. Are we here just to survive? Even to subvert our creative voices to succumb to this monopoly? Only our designers, whose job it is to offer solutions, can answer these questions.
Varun Rana is a fashion commentator and consultant, and is currently consulting with the label Shantanu and Nikhil, which is mentioned in this feature.
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