View RahulMishra_7's fall 2021 couture collection.
“India was very badly hit by the pandemic,” said Rahul Mishra, calling from Delhi. “I didn’t come across anyone who didn’t lose a loved one.” Mishra and his family were spared the ordeal “quite miraculously”; but conditions were so severe that he wasn’t sure he would be able to work on the couture collection. Traveling to Paris was out of the question. Eventually the situation improved and he went back to the atelier with his team. “It’s when I realized the power of creativity.
The last pre-pandemic holiday Mishra took with his family was in the Greek island of Santorini, where he returned in spirit to find inspiration for this couture collection. It was a happy time spent with his four-year-old daughter, who kept asking questions, as all little kids do. “Bapu, why the sky is blue? And why the stars are shining?” recalled Mishra. “Her curiosity triggered my curiosity and fueled my imagination.
During lockdown, Mishra came across a quote from Monet about the impossible challenge of painting on canvas the beauty of air. “How can you make air into an actual dress?” he asked himself. He called the collection the Shape of Air. In Hindu culture, everything on earth is made by five elements: earth, water, fire, wind, and space. “I started looking at the island of Santorini as a gorgeous embodiment of these five natural principles,” Mishra said.
Through this titanic creative task he was able to give employment to a multitude of artisans: “Even during the pandemic I haven’t laid off anyone,” said Mishra, who apparently employs around 1,000 people in his practice; another 50 were involved in the making of the lookbook and the video. “For me sustainability is first and foremost sustaining people’s lives, supporting them on an everyday basis, producing by hand and producing less,” he said.