When the story hit home, and models smiled

If there is an overarching theme to be teased out of the recently concluded virtual edition of Lakme Fashion Week, it is the triumph of human emotion

The special attention placed by the camera on the gnarly hands of an artisan spooling Kala cotton yarn highlighted a tiny detail that went into the making an 11.11/eleven eleven indigo jumper in a film screened as part of the first digital edition of IMG Reliance Lakmé Fashion Week (LFW) last week. Presented in collaboration with Fashion Open Studio, an initiative by Fashion Revolution UK, the nine-minute film concluded with the artisan sewing an NFC (Near Field Communication) button: a tech-accessory that allows a consumer to trace the stages in the journey of the garment, from weaver to dyer and final creation.

The designers behind this Delhi-born label, Shani Himanshu and Mia Morikawa, while curating an equitable supply chain also reminded us that fashion is essentially a creation of the human hand.

LFW's season fluid digital chapter unfolded to include a multimedia rollout of fashion films, post-show interactions with select designers, and a podcast by Nonita Kalra, former editor, Harper's Bazaar India. It also embedded serviceable tabs like virtual showroom, buy now/shop the look, except, unlike its physical avatar where accredited members of the media could access the buyer stalls and exhibition area, entry was denied to the online event.

On the whole, this season can be read as a billboard for saree branding—the garment that looks great whether on a rail or in a digital film. Also, for once, the models smiled. Who better than textile expert Gaurang Shah to turn smiling into a fashionable act? "I didn't like this digital avatar," says the Hyderabad-based National Award winning designer in a post-show interview. "I am missing my backstage. I am missing tamasha and tension, the gadbad. But now, I realise it's [digital] great, I am connecting to many more people than a [physical] show."

The Indian fashion industry could do well to take a lesson from Shah's humility, and dedication to craft. He followed a different road with Taramati, a range of 30 sarees; clubbing the Kanjeevaram weave with Kutchi embroidery, Kota Doria together with Chikankari, and Parsi Gara and French knots.

Raw Mango by Sanjay Garg

Raw Mango's Sanjay Garg is another old soul who believes Indian textiles can both seduce and inspire. His Moomal collection delivered on both counts with a mist of Park Avenue-scented nostalgia. He misses home enough to have taken viewers on a trip to Rajasthan through a mosaic-like film reimagined against the backdrop of a local wedding. Here, Garg performed an about-turn from his signature sarees, focusing instead on jewel-toned lehengas bearing the zardozi peacock leitmotif, and brocade salwar sets. "The saree entered our home only from my mother's generation, but the lehenga has been part of the daily life of Rajasthani women [for long]," the designer mentions during the film.

Anavila

If Garg's film was a groovy commentary on conforming awkwardness (why didn't people smile in old photos?), a sweeping arid landscape and pre-internet Rooh Afza melancholia, the All About India group show nudged a discussion around women in a modern location. The film announced IMG Reliance's craft-based initiative with Creative Dignity, a volunteer movement for relief and rehabilitation of indigenous crafts and artisans. It included representation from Anavila Misra, Payal Khandwala, Satya Paul by Rajesh Pratap Singh, Suket Dhir, Urvashi Kaur and Abraham & Thakore. Each designer took hand-woven textiles and techniques as a starting point for clothes that were sophisticated and assured, if sometimes styled to the point of finding a home in a glossy centre-spread; model Anjali Lama (for Suket Dhir) stretched her hands across a table at the St Regis coffee shop as contemporary folk duo Hari & Sukhmani rendered an updated Gul naal ishq mitha track as the background score.

Payal Khandwala

But amid all the calculated levity, the showmanship was inescapable. Singh's version of Puttapaka ikat weaves (a labour intensive double ikat), which is a 200-year-old tradition, was absolute while also primed for a revolution. Khandwala's Phulia Jamdani sarees in her specialty colour blocking style were brought to life with sprays of metallic wildflowers. For a decade, Misra's mantra has been "pastels sell". She is also an intelligent designer with an acuity to read a room, and when the scope of a fashion showcase is limited to screens, she changes her game, ever so slightly, to throw in flushes of a bold colour palette of vermillion, aqua blue, mustard and sunset orange, with festive embellishments on sarees (linen and khatwa from Dumka, Jharkhand).

The idea of power dressing is classically synonymous with the jacket or blouse with accentuated shoulders, and when the latter is teamed with a saree, it comes to represent a delightful act of defiance, something only Abraham & Thakore could concoct using a metallic block print from Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh. The opposite of sexy? Laidback hemlines and sexually liberated shapes snuggled with micro-pleats and shibori tye dye craft (from Rajasthan and Haryana). At Kaur's showcase, heels become flats and gender obsolete. Dhir's collection looked joyful and refined, both stately and traditional in the union of step collar, two-button jackets and Banarasi brocades.

Rajesh Pratap Singh for Satya Paul

Leonardo da Vinci's famous drawing of a spread-eagled male figure, known as the Vitruvian Man, on a saree? The Renaissance master's study in the proportions of the human body, perhaps, pairs well with Hemang Agrawal and his experiments with Banaras silk and brocade to not only include Western shapes of the trench coat, jumpsuit, jacket and trousers, but also youthful prints. "Why can't handlooms be young?" the Varanasi-based textile developer and designer had told mid-day in an earlier interview. He once again impressed with Tattva, a collection crafted from GRS (Global Recycle Standard) certified biodegradable and compostable Bemberg brocades. The show filmed in Mumbai, however, felt clinical. Theatrically scowling models done up in dark lipstick and vampy shades marching to the drone of guitars didn't quite work.

Saaksha and Kinni

Pre-pandemic, a peÌu00c2u0081ro show would usually be the highlight of a fashion week calendar—with the show area bursting at the seams with editors, stylists, buyers, patrons and students. They weren't just there to view designer Aneeth Arora's long love affair with hippy chic, body-loving dresses, puff-sleeved blouses, petticoats and pinafores. Her shows indulged female friendships like a warm embrace, and the audience always left with a smile, because the models did. While most of the films on schedule were content to dwell on the current moment, Arora's Locked in Love video turbocharged the joie de vivre; the old-fashioned neighbourly encounters, play dates and a dreamy cast of ethically-made #stayhome clothing ideas.

Rimzim Dadu

Saaksha & Kinni and Rimzim Dadu couldn't be more opposing apropos design sensibilities. The first label offers psychedelic colour combinations and patterns tempered with modern, cheering shapes—wrap sarees and dresses, jackets and kaftans. These are a stark contrast to Dadu's nighttime palette, rectilinear lines on sarees, jumpsuits and blouses crafted from industrial materials like steel wires and faux leather cords, which render a lovely swishing sound effect when the model walks by.

Perhaps they marry in the way they imagine clothes, how they are made and transform the silhouette of a woman's body, sculpting it in movement.

It's been a year like no other, and this was an LFW season like none before it. We came away, saying, hey, we didn't mind not "being there",

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