A trip to “Interstellar-twist”-Rahul Mishra’s Parisian odyssey-as the couturier recently showcased ‘Cosmos’ on the opening day of Paris Haute Couture Week Spring-Summer 2023. Aboard the maximalist spaceship harbouring alternate worlds of fantastical art and clinical precision, butterflies and business, rootedness and escape.

The butterfly has been a recurring motif in the surrealistic botanical world of Rahul Mishra. And like the butterfly and the moth-which undergo metamorphosis with the four stages of egg, larva, pupa, and adult-Rahul Mishra has lived many lives as a couturier, undergoing several metamorphosis as his work continues to resonate with the familiar yet unknown.

On January 23, completing another orbit of his phenomenal couture odyssey, Mishra showcased ‘Cosmos’ on the opening day of Paris Haute Couture Week Spring-Summer 2023. As a guest member of Federation de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM), Mishra has been showing at the prestigious event since 2020, while the show marks his 20th season in Paris. The universe of Cosmos was exuberant with intergalactic glitter; Emily in Paris famed Ashley Park, American actor Kelly Rutherford and popular American stylist Law Roach were among the front-row guests in attendance.

‘Cosmos’ expands from the familiar human landscape into infinity and beyond-the sunken city of Atlantis-bringing together celestial bodies, planets and planetoids through laborious detailing, rich imagination and smart presentation.

The Noida-based designer has always stressed on process rather than the product. Mishra marked his foray into the Indian fashion market in 2006 with the handlooms of Kerala.

And since then it has been Mishra’s enduring commitment to support the indigenous craft communities of India and bring employment to their homes in the villages. If the journey of empowering craftspersons with livelihoods and dignity has been homeward, Mishra’s own journey has been boundless, expanding into multiple realms of being, exploring meanings and metaphors, all the while honing his treatment of craft and understanding of global retail.

With the new collection hosted at The Westin Vendome in Paris, in a pre-recorded note, Mishra acknowledged the Parisian great Yves Saint Laurent, who was also known to showcase his designs at the luxe venue.

The collection note says that Cosmos is a vision of physical reality founded in the utmost truth of our being-originating from the Sanskrit statement ‘Aham Brahmasmi,’which loosely translates into ‘I am the cosmos’. In fact, Mishra, during the initial stages, had referred to it as his own “Interstellar-twist”. It says that through this collection, the designer has attempted to understand if the world that surrounds us could be a construction of stimulations interpreted by the human brain, and if the universe within us may be a replication of the physical reality we are a minuscule part of. With this collection, Mishra breaks the linearity of comprehension with the inclusion of fantasy. Here’s a look at the stunning display: a 3D tiered gown cascading down the runway with varying shapes at the neck and hemlines presented as hand-cut and sewn leaves to add volume; an exaggerated cape featuring hand-tacked embellishments doubling as a dress; the cocoon dress accentuated with a hood that frames the face like a jewelled accessory.

The signature of art, adventure and 3D hand embroidery

A champion of slow fashion, his eponymous label with two flagship stores in India, and a thriving national and international distribution channel, finds its genesis in the ideas of sustainability.

The brand is synonymous with 3D hand embroidery, which had initially started off as an exploration of monochromatic geometric explorations. The thread has continued to disrupt the fashion stage at Paris Haute Couture Week. In fact, in offering astutely crafted, comfort-oriented, flamboyant yet functional couture ensembles, Mishra has stayed true to this world of vivid imagination: photorealistic vivid poppies, gold leaves and petals and so on. It is as if the designer’s reveries have been stitched together in intricate threadwork and mixed media two- and three- dimensional embroideries, lending the famed feather-weight, diaphanous and airy quality to the pieces.

The couturier is also a keen traveller known to document and later recollect the sensorial experiences to articulate them in wearable art. In fact, Mishra-a worshipper of Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet-has been credited to bridge the gap between art, memory and fashion, often ‘painting’ his own renditions of the landscapes that he views on to the clothes.

Breaking ground

As someone who has broken new ground at home and created a niche identity in Paris, Mishra possesses a keen understanding of the couture consumer of today. An understanding not only in terms of the clothes they want to put their money on but overall in the shift in sensibilities and in the aesthetic that they are looking for.

Indeed, Paris has sort of been the site of the designer’s design Bildungsroman-a journey marking several transitions, epiphanies and moments of truth. In fact, the Woolmark prize- winning designer has described it as his “karma bhumi”, a home away from home in its role as a nurturer of his talent.

Fashion critic and former international fashion editor of Vogue, Suzy Menkes, an avid follower of the brand’s work, regards the couturier as a “national treasure”, while the late Franca Sozzani has praised him as “successfully highlighting the best and most peculiar features of his homeland.”

Realised in two- and three-dimensional hand embroidery complemented by elements made in hand-cast recycled brass that are gold-plated and encrusted with Swarovski crystals, this collection is the brand’s most exuberant effort at surface development, the collection note informs. Handcrafted across villages of India, each craft separately generates employment for over 3,000 human hours on an average. Drawn from age- old traditional Indian craft techniques, the application speaks to a global couture consumer of today.

Striving to be ‘art’, while remaining ‘fashion’, the collection while being trend-agnostic stays committed to an element of whimsy.