A love letter to otherness

Couturier Amit Aggarwal celebrates his brand’s 10th birthday and his queer identity with off-kilter high-fashion design ideas, royally ditching the Bollywood showstopper for drag performers

This literally feels like family,” Amit Aggarwal says about the making of Pedesis, a collection that celebrates 10 years of his eponymous brand, putting the queer front and centre, both on stage and behind the scenes. “It’s a gift to be presenting a show that represents our family, our voices, alongside the clothes,” the couturier adds.

Held last weekend in New Delhi, the show felt like a love letter to individuality, camp and performance. The selection of models was on point; so interchangeable in their looks that they became a grand, genderless blur. Among the cast of familiar faces were drag artists Rani-KoHEnur (Sushant Divgikr), Betta Naan Stop (Prateek Sachdeva), Sushiru (Sushiel Yaikhom) and Glorious Luna (Suruj Rajkhowa). The makeup team was led by queer artist Kaaji Rai aka Diva Rose, and Daman Chaudhary, backstage coordinator.

Drag performer Glorious Luna in an Amit Aggarwal rubber cording structured bodysuit with handcrafted metallic jewellery and nylon fringe detailing

Aggarwal, 42, felt emboldened partly because he is candid about his own sexuality. But mostly because, this time he felt that his sartorial ideas were “outlandish” and was looking to explore the hinterland of “abstract, amorphous personalities” to convey the relationship between the carnal and spiritual, the mortal body and the garments around it. “The impulse to dress the body in a spectacular way is a very powerful part of the drag aesthetic. And it is this same impulse that is at the heart of high fashion.”

But, will his off-kilter “amorphous” couture ideas, particularly the celebration of difference and individuality, put off some of the gatekeepers of traditions?  “Bridal wear is important to our brand. I don’t think the young generation is too fussed about the heteronormative ideas of love or marriage. And if they are uncomfortable with whom I dress and what I have to say, I am not the designer for them. It has nothing to do with the optics, but with my intuition and intention.”

Here, polymer was converted into yarn and woven on a handloom with organic cotton to create an altogether new textile featuring an abstract Ikat pattern

While high-fashion tends to look at clothes as carrying a purpose, Aggarwal believes that garments are a way to be seen—fashion is pushed aside and the focus shifted to an individual’s body, and he will draw attention to its beauty with the use of colours, geometric patterns and reflective fabrics.

Aggarwal, who schooled at Goregaon’s St. Thomas High School and later went to Narsee Monjee College before relocating to New Delhi, has earned a place for himself in the industry ever since he launched his brand in 2012 and began to play a part in how India viewed couture. His lightweight designs with architectural and artistic shapes, and surface details created using recycled rubber cord and polymer continues to unhinge the system of sequins and thread that plugs for a particular brand of bridal couture mythology. “In this collection, we have tried to elevate polymer to the level of handloom, and reimagined it like the Ikat pattern. It’s [fabric] extremely malleable and was created using the intarsia technique where organic cotton was woven with leftover slivers of polymer.”

Amit Aggarwal backstage before last week’s show.PIC COURTESY/TARUN KALYANI

During the theatrical presentation of the 66 garments at the show, it was clear that Aggarwal likes to layer several characters into one outfit. Rani-KoHEnur wore an ivory pantsuit in bell-bottom style with a black-grey ruffle cape cascading in laser-cut rose petals, crafted to look almost like pencil shavings. “The idea behind choosing a drag performer to wear this outfit was to foreground the political allusions of women in pantsuits,” Aggarwal explains.

The handcrafted jewellery gear like the ornate ecclesiastical headpieces that accompanied the garments got bigger and bolder as the show progressed. Lakshmi Rana modelled an embroidered headpiece which said, “I am made of roses” in the couturier’s handwriting. Then we saw various geometric metallic and polymer cut-out pieces that were welded together; sometimes fashioned like an enormous ring around the head, otherwise shrunk into teasing loops of circles and triangles around the nipple. “We [designers] often forget to have fun with fashion. [Let’s not forget] that fashion is an almost-primal euphoria, which is why so many are driven by its wild possibilities.”

Superstar drag queen Rani-KoHEnur in a rubber and rose ruffle cape on an ivory pantsuit

A childlike curiosity for how things are engineered coupled with an unlimited appetite for composing poetry and pencil drawing informs Aggarwal’s points of view. His father worked as an engineer. “When I was in school, I wanted a fish tank but my father said that I should make one. So, I scoured construction sites looking for discarded materials and managed to build an aquarium. I don’t think I was all that successful; the fish did not survive,” he laughs.

With an eye on the future, Aggarwal says he is happy that his brand has remained fresh and relevant. “Ten years ago, people would look at an outfit on the runway and wonder, ‘Can I wear it?’ ‘Can I sit in it?’ I say it with a lot of happiness that so many brides today are choosing to wear us.”

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