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Wearable and the weird

Students of NIFT create jaw-drop designs for their passing out rampage as SERISH NANISETTIsizes them up

SKIRT OR BATTLESHIP A model wears a skirt that looks more like a tent — Photo: K Ramesh Babu

A fashion show laid out by designers passing out of a design institute can't be anything but a mixed bag considering the fact that 28 of them have taken up the scissors, needles, fabrics and perched the pencil on their ear. First on the go was Deepa with her creations inspired by Queen Elsinore: in walked a model with a skirt like a parasol holding a stainless steel pot with a Maltese cross on it. Another model, the single-piece dress looked like a prince's turban, another skirt, this time a more conical parasol but reminding us of a battle tank.

Then there was a wardrobe malfunction. But before you google it, it was nothing more than a model almost tripping over her skirt shaped like a brolly.

We all know what is a sari, right? Wrong. Kusuma took a scissor stab and voila! the sari became a colourful piece of cloth that you use to wrap around your skirt and top. The almost wearable fashion wear had a bit of nifty embroidery.

After Shilpa Gupta's nostalgic futurism, Chinki Bhatnagar's youth transformation had the models wearing frill fringed denim skirts or piped trousers matched with simple shirts swinging to Ice Ice Baby. Maqbool Basha laid out Romantic Bizzare: an essay on creative use of fabric with uneven, asymmetrical cuts, and an oddly sensual yet non-classifiable bizarre shapes and cuts.

Anshul Talwar called her collection Art d Oeuvre and she made the models walk the ramp with sheer colourful fabric cut square, fringed with an embroidered border, neck and with a minimalistic stitch work with a churidar-like creation.

Then Janakiraman showcased his Riders of the Western World where the models strutted brownish earthy stuff with off the shop shelf clothes and shoes reworked for the show.

After a few more shows, Rupal Agarwal made the models walk the ramp with sunshine colours fringing on the psychedelic for her creations revelling in asymmetry and inelegant cuts assaulting colour sensibilities and aesthetics. Anant Naidu created a set of evening wear with variegated cuts and rounded up his design by tying a bandana like thing on the exposed calves of the models.

Cultural heritage

The best part of the show was how the students-on-their-way-to-be-designers drew on their cultural heritage as their wellspring of inspiration.

So, it was a blend in as well as a break from the heritage for most of the students who hail from almost all parts of the country. Sahil Gulati took inspiration from the Bhil traditions of Rajashtan and her creations had colours, quilt work, motifs for a set of clothes that would be perhaps appropriate for a marriage.

Then there was Divya Thomas with her Mesmerising Elegance a show that appeared like a tribute to veiled Rebecca at the Salar Jung Museum.

The veil with gauge-like material in dark shade with a hint of design was one thing, the clothes in greys, browns blending into black were stuff of another kind with brilliant cuts and shapes.

Sriharsha's Travelogue had something about accessorising it right. In the world of wearable, the real creatively weird stuff was Srikant Vedula's Rasleela in Space where the models walked in with masks, peacock feathers, funky, clunky clothes and accessories absorbing the zardosi tradition welded to space age needs.

That's the way to go.

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