Rahul Mishra’s moving collection for fall 2019 draws from his childhood

Some create from a robust sense of structure, others with a moving sense of colour. Rahul Mishra is a creator who operates on emotion. If you had to look at his body of work, it would inadvertently be tangled with nostalgia. This season, he looked through a poetic lens at the house he grew up playing in as a child. “I come from a village called Malhousie, in Uttar Pradesh. Look it up; even Google won’t be able to help you,” he jokes. The abandoned house of his youth might be run down, but instead of harping on the decay, Mishra noticed something else. “The house was taken over by nature and it was beautiful to see all these weeds and animals as the new residents of a place so rich with memories for me,” he describes the exact point where inspiration crept for the making of the new collection. Divya Bhatt Mishra, Rahul’s partner and confidant, swiftly arrived at the scene with a select team to capture the essence of the space and to be able to translate it into something tangible.

The new, old and in-between

The lineup is a coming together of two main aspects—the architecture of the house and school uniforms of childhood are represented with graphic textile, and the wilderness of nature done in signature Rahul Mishra applique. “Everything is made by hand and really no two garments are alike,” he explains. While the base for some of the looks is a basic worsted fabric made from Merino wool, nearly 80 per cent of the graphic textile is handwoven used using khadi yarns, while the sheer fabrics are made in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh.

Mishra, who comes from a educational background in Physics, really stumbled upon design as solution rather than art. His purpose comes from trying to create something that will benefit both the maker and the person commissioning it. He is an ardent proponent of growing the handloom sector in India as well as using reverse migration as a business model to not uproot his artisans from their hometowns. “For me it’s about participation and how inclusive we can make the whole process of creation. It’s not just about what is made at the end but also how it is made,” Mishra says.

As a designer, Mishra is conscious not to be written off as one dimensional. “We wanted to bring a modern touch to the heritage textiles and craftsmanship I use,” he says. For the first time, Mishra also made use of a darker colour palette moving from moody greys to blacks. In terms of styling, one saw sheer dresses worn over trousers, evening dresses and a lot of tailoring.

Rahul Mishra completes 10 seasons of showcasing at Paris Fashion Week with this show since his big International Woolmark Prize win in 2014. As a young father, Mishra was hesitant to be away from his daughter for a long period of time due to the demands of a show of this scale, but with talks with the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode about presenting couture in the works, consistency was critical. The designer also has the ambitious plan of opening a retail space in Paris. “It’s becoming increasingly difficult for departmental stores to do justice to smaller brands, so the future lies in taking charge of the narrative,” he says.

Mishra’s process is unorthodox but rooted in tradition; it’s unlikely you will see anything resembling his work on the lineup. “I can very easily use the most luxurious fabrics and feathers to create something similar to product that’s already available in the market but what would be the point of that?” Just as much as there is room for Rahul Mishra’s clothes in an international competitive space, there’s hope for a woman who understands them.