MintLounge Loves | Abraham & Thakore’s Autumn/Winter collection
Taming wild silks
Last week, when designer duo Abraham & Thakore’s Autumn/Winter 2014 collection walked down the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW) ramp, many in the audience, who for some reason sit on the edge of their seats, settled back into easy postures. Not only is good fashion a reassuring sight but it doesn’t need a connoisseur. It makes immediate sense to the seasoned and the uninitiated alike, promises participation through wearability, and makes its role as fashion (versus regular clothing) clear: that it has a story, a reason and a season.
In this case, wild silks like Eri, Muga and Tussar sourced from the North-East and Bihar had been woven in Andhra Pradesh to tease out old weaving traditions of Ikat and temple borders, and in Varanasi to weave Tussar with brocade. Design innovations like a leopard-print effect through embroidery and digital printing or the use of abstract temple motifs in varied sizes defined this collection. Modern without being self-consciously glamorous, urban without being in-your-face experimental and Indian without being ethnic, the name of the collection, Urban Shikar, was apt.
In shades of Khaki, dull gold and black, it had a variety of silhouettes: long wrap skirts, slim or wide Tussar pants, unstitched as well as stitched half-saris, cosy animal-print trench coats, tee tops, kediyas and more. Styled with slim bronze belts, front-closed mojris with leather straps, gelled hair, nude lips and dark eye make-up, the look was “slick” all right.
“Slick” is David Abraham’s word. “Tussar has such a netaji look about it as a fabric that we wanted to style it in a slick, urban-modern way,” says Abraham of the designer duo whose infrequent shows end up becoming conversation starters in the fashion industry. It is also important, says Abraham, to show how a technically intricate collection can be worn simply. So a long wrap skirt in black and khaki temple pattern was paired with a plain white poplin top whereas a stitched half-sari was worn with a classic men’s shirt.
What we loved most was the imaginative use of the temple pattern—small to very large. Explained in weaving technique as a meeting point between two types of yarns or two colours to give the textile stability, the “temple” is, says Abraham, a “structural weaving reality that makes for beautiful design”.
