Spring/Summer Show - Sneak Peek

A film by Tenzin Dakpa on the show

Act One Scene One
Spring/Summer 2011
8:30 pm, 1st September 2010,
British Council, 17 Kasturba Gandhi Marg

As we move on from one stage in life to the next, there is a sense of loss, a sense of moving on. This collection is based on that journey. It takes inspiration from the sense of change that we have all around us, in our country and in our cities; we are moving forward rapidly but while we fight to win the global economic war, there are scars of that battle everywhere. Our cities are dug up and shrouded in the dust of construction, our old playgrounds and parks are giving way to parking lots and our bustling markets are being eaten up by sterile malls. We are losing all that is poignant, nostalgic and unique about our lives and this is an ode to that loss of beauty.
‘I want to do drawings which touch people. In figure or landscape I should wish to express, not sentimental melancholy, but serious sorrow’
Vincent van Gogh



As time goes by, I find myself more interested in the assimilation and dissemination of ideas, I feel that the show has to be more than a display of clothes; it is a vehicle for all the ideas, feelings and emotions that have germinated the collection.

For this season, I wanted to explore the idea of collaborating with other visual artists to see the interplay and resonances of expressing one idea through different mediums. The sense of isolation and loss in the fast-changing city is brought out by Filmmaker and Photographer, Tenzin Dakpa through his short film ‘Clouds’ and by Paper Engineer, Sachin George Sebastian with his shadow installation ‘Into the Valley’. The music for the show is being performed by Skinny Boys, Delhi's only all girl rock band who will be singing a rendition of Pete Seeger's classic 'Where have all the flowers gone' which as an anti war song is a perfect metaphor for the theme of the collection. Tenzin will also be making a film based on the process of the show, thus taking the show out of the context of just being relegated to a display of the collection. This is my first step in exploring how the premises of fashion can be expanded beyond the conventional audience and I would like to build and work on this more in the coming seasons.

I have worked with a neutral palette for this collection – the primary colours are beige, white, ivory and black. The focus is still on the body and ways of defining and shaping the form but in a softer way. The lines are not sharp but flow along the curves of the body. There is a lot of interplay between transparency and opacity and between fluidity and rigidity. I have worked with many explorations and manipulations of fabric to achieve texture or to provide an inherent shape to the garments. There is extensive use of hand and couture-based skills to achieve the concepts used in the collection.


Credits for the Show
Choreography – Varun Sardana
Art Direction – Varun Sardana
Light and Sound Direction – Amit Mahanti
Music – Skinny Boys
Hair – Ambika Pillai
Models – Elite Model Management and Karma Models
Backstage – Pujan
Shadow Installation – Sachin George Sebastian
Video Installation – Tenzin Dakpa
Producers – Amrit Sharma and Lubna Shaheen

We would like to thank the British Council for their tremendous support for the event.