“Indians don’t give a damn about fashion,” said Rohit Bal. This was for the 2021 Diwali edition of The Voice of Fashion interviewed by this writer. Three Diwalis later in 2024, as Delhi played a noxious hide and seek with air pollution and rules were flouted across the national capital disregarding legal guidelines banning the burning of crackers, Bal, was breathing his last. The designer-couturier-dreamer-dazzler, obsessed almost, with the idea of “celebration”, which meant booze and buzz, dancing on the ramp or off it with abandon, who was openly in love with heady wines (headier men too), who made lotuses on his clothes look like they held their own Zen, died. 

A prolonged illness, cardiac complications, numerous recent hospitalisations and, as is widely known, a precarious lifestyle, finally caught up. Finally? The “finally”, on November 1, came sooner than what was anticipated after his recent public outing and a year later after he had been declared critically ill and on a ventilator in November 2023. Bal had been dying for about a year now. With those heart-health issues, he had been undying a long time before that, a decade or more maybe.  Previous

Bal on TVOF’s special digital cover for Diwali 2021.

Sagar Ahuja for TVOF

A model at the finale of Delhi Fashion Week in 2009.

Manpreet Romana/AFPNext

In a matter of minutes after the announcement of his tragic passing at the age of 63 trickled in, social media feeds of those in and out of fashion, in and out of style, in and out of the business of design, Kashmiri food, rose gardens, designer homes in Goa, sexily overdone anarkalis—mirrored his life. His friends in fashion, his critics too, his fans of course, his un-fans too. The outpouring was a dossier on relationships of all kinds, those upheld with flamboyance and those set aside for privacy. Deep connects, deeper loves, uncannily mixed with Rohit Bal’s red pants surging in a photo somewhere, his Jodhpurs elsewhere, his eyes glinting behind aviators, his salted beard and golden hair cocking a snook at the “finally”. We are now seeing, on Instagram, a life fully lived from Bal’s homeland Kashmir to St Stephen’s College in Delhi to Indian fashion’s innards and through its periodic recessions. 

The flame of the designer with a yen for fame with his green-blue eyes, impossibly charming smile, as his lips crinkled to express love and loss, has extinguished. Or has it?

The designer’s final collection showcased at LFW x FDCI in October 2024.

Giving a Damn and Few About Rohit Bal

Indians may not give a damn about fashion, but it is poignantly apparent that they jolly well give many “damns” about Rohit Bal. In fact, this sentiment or a procession of them, attired with “Gudda, Gudda, ‘my favourite designer, my friend, my muse, my heartthrob,” had done a dress rehearsal just a few weeks back when Rohit Gudda Bal, who never stepped out without his pet name Gudda, returned to his playground, to present the finale, of the October 2024 edition of Lakmē Fashion Week x FDCI. He sat, on the peripheral front row at his show, frail and fragile, doused in the magic of his creations as roses and peacocks, forest creatures and lithe models, flowing white or black garments, decorated sherwanis walked past, holding their heads high, hearts on their sleeve. 

And Bal’s heart? Oh, it was aflutter alright, as it had always been. He would get up and dance to life. His effervescence was his pride, perhaps also his tragedy. He was prone to excitement and abandon. He suffered from the need to rejoice. So, while his life of love and loss and a lot of fashion, was spiked with successes of an unusual oeuvre, his fame was bigger than the impact of his clothes. Rohit Bal was famous for being Rohit Bal. If you deconstruct it, it wasn’t his flamboyant, yards full of couture, or his embroideries and patterns that got us lost in the woods and the forests. It was his charm, persona, his self-respect, his rejection of tabloid media, the way he held his sadness, his inner laments and his outer musings. 

An archival photo of the designer.

Bal honoured the mud in his lotus life.

Bal was a ponderous man, a gay designer famous for his love affairs, who seldom suffered mediocrity. A realist who could write poetry through his creations. “The lotus grows in muddy water, and look at its beauty, how can you not love it?” he said once to me, commenting on the patterns on his couture. He honoured the mud in his lotus life. 

Ever Say Never 

The only A-list designer who refused to fall into the trap of mindless collaborations. Or maybe he didn’t know how to manage his businesses with the same aplomb as he lived his life. Who never made a fashion film during COVID-19. Maybe he was too unwell, too pessimistic, too disorganised. Who refused to be photographed for a special issue of Best Dressed Men of India for a well-known magazine because they wanted to put a film star on the cover instead of him. Yayyy. The magazine’s loss. 

Isn’t it our loss that the Rohit Bal Body Politic never got written, from how he viewed the body in and out of fashion.  

Rohit Bal, famously slept late and woke up late. He would arrive many hours after call time at a shoot or interview, lost in a haze of existential entanglements. As he woke, he would only share his dreams. The curious investigator into the flames of creativity behind design, had to then wonder about Bal’s nightmares. Because it was evident in the nuances of his designs, the way he covered his female models architecturally burying them in dozens of metres of fabrics, the way he sent out male models, once for a show, with sindoor in their hair parting and large nathnis, (nose rings). It was a sharp satire few have been able to manage on the Indian ramp. Nath utaarna (devirgination) is a sordid, cultural reality in this country. Isn’t it our loss that the Rohit Bal Body Politic never got written, from how he viewed the body in and out of fashion.  

Between Gudda and Rohit Bal 

Plenty of his friends know about Bal’s real and metaphoric nightmares. I won’t go to the extent of claiming to be his “friend”, especially now that he is no more, but we did have a connection. “How are you?” came a frail sounding message on Whatsapp, many weeks after he had stepped off the ventilator at Medanta hospital in Gurugram, last year. I wanted to message that some newspapers had pre-prepared Obits while he was seriously ill. But he knew that anyway. He had long learnt to guess the instincts of media. Previous

(L-R): Ajay Balhara in Rohit Bal from 2002; A campaign shot.

A creation from Pearls Infrastructure Delhi Couture Week 2010.

Manan Vatsyayana/AFPNext

That scandal and controversy preceded deeper reflections in Indian fashion and cultural journalism on Bal’s work was a massive tragedy. Bigger than the heart attacks he endured. Famous for being famous meant that a section of the media would piggyback on his fame and somewhat notoriety built judgementally around gay designers two decades back. It was okay once upon a time to send out an unchecked, unverified story about a Page Three party that had run riot if Bal was in it. What about his fashion? 

Thankfully there was plenty to see and love, plenty to wish for and wear. But as we mourn the designer who indulged himself to death, let’s make sure that we don’t just mourn a famous man, who effortlessly ushered Wokeism to this industry without screaming about it, more than a decade before anyone remotely “woke up to it”. That we also mourn a master creator, a dexterous designer, a couturier whose work will always bloom keeping him in fashion.