Celebrating a decade at FDCI India Couture Week 2022, the designer introduced a new fabric and flirted with the idea of his fabric becoming wall art and sculptures.
Celebrating a decade at FDCI India Couture Week 2022, the designer introduced a new fabric and flirted with the idea of his fabric becoming wall art and sculptures.
Crafted from recycled plastic and industrial materials, Amit Agarwal’s floor-skimming dresses and lehengas at FDCI’s India Couture Week are not far from idols. That, he admits after the show, was the plan. His 66-piece collection, the Pedis, was housed in pre-pandemic Bali, which is known for its basketry, batik and handcrafted jewellery. The Delhi-based designer had brought back two large drawings from that vacation, which was his “first point of excitement”. “They belong to this African Aboriginal boy. Perhaps because I used to see them every day for the past two years, I was subconsciously drawn to the influence of Aboriginal culture that came with the ambiguity of colour, body ornamentation and form in this collection,” he says .
a dress from the collection
‘With a new story’
Agarwal, 42, spent the early months of sketching the pandemic, finding comfort in everyday tasks like tracking parrots by his window and washing dishes. He was “looking inwards” he told me then, and was also trying to understand “how extra fabric can go into creating something new and fresh” an interesting story for customers. Well, it seems he has succeeded. Marking a decade of their iconic clothing label, this new collection features the crafted structures and techniques we’ve come to expect from them, such as rubber cording and tube pleating. But it also heralds a brave new couture. “Technically, we’ve always woven the polymer by hand, not on the handloom,” the designer says, referring to the extra strips of polymer left over from the molding process. “We now turned that ‘yarn’ into a weft while the loom was put in place with organic cotton for the warp. And it became a hand-woven fabric,” he explains. “Really beautiful, this Looked like a luxurious, modern ikat.”
Amit Aggarwal with Artisan
time error
At her Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium show last week, where the monotonous interiors of the auditorium were deliberately maintained, Agarwal’s models dressed in tiers and fancifully cut dresses, prismatic flowing skirts, fun jumpsuits and sharp, geometric menswear. Exhibited. And they teased at the ceremony their pet themes of beauty, timelessness and a mess in time. Later, expanding on his glitches in time theory, he says, “We all know that time is the greatest descriptor of our story and connects you, makes moments happen. Many verses meet, and you can exist in several parallel universes at the same time.” The designer says that their ‘visual description of time’ borrows its name from physics because pedesis (or Brownian motion, the random motion of particles in a fluid after collisions with other atoms or molecules) is also part of their 10-year journey. represents.
fast burning tiger
“Amit is creative as a designer but handsome as a person. You see in his clothes. She gets the feminine form with beauty. The waist is always tucked in, the bust is always highlighted. I like this about his style. I enjoyed the extravagance of intricately made clothes that were larger than life. But this look summed it all up for me: Amit’s beauty, craftsmanship, used innovative techniques and yet it’s extremely wearable. It is almost like a tiger, but in Amit Agarwal’s style,” says celebrity stylist Anita Shroff Adajania.
Their models were adorned with armor and halos, reminiscent of gods and goddesses. “It wasn’t a direct point of connection, but I think it was the subconscious,” Aggarwal admitted. “As a child, one of my first creative moments was the Ganpati puja at home, when I built small thermocol temples myself. I had so much fun fixing the motorized wheel behind the deity! That said, I think the halo also tells about the energy you emit. The aura you carry with you. ,
no corporate plan
Originally from Mumbai’s Goregaon suburb, Agarwal is one of the few who pushed the envelope at the 15th edition of ICW 2022, an event in which 13 designers showcased in the capital over nine days.
“My favorite look, almost like a tiger, but in Amit’s style”: Anita Shroff
He talks about creating pieces that can be archived even as Polymer’s language changes, and admits he currently has no plans that involve corporate investment. “For me, travel is youth. I need to understand how the polymer will react. The first piece we made is in the collection and not out of date. When I ask about the “higher purpose” of their clothing, they say, the shape holds itself, it’s still folded and washable. “Something you don’t have, in the traditional gamut of fashion, always requires covering up your body or embellishments. That may be the initial aim. A lot of my pieces, if you don’t have them as body forms. Let’s see, there will be beautiful sculptures for her living space.” Last Saturday, when she took a bow on stage, the only color in her black ensemble being her red Cardi B x Reebok sneakers, Agarwal proved once again. Turns out that for them, the story had just begun.