When The East Wind Blows

This season, fashion houses look towards a new frontier. India, the next muse.

- Anne Lee

Yves Saint Laurent first introduced Indian supermodel Kirat Young—in fur stoles and velvet dresses that evoked tsar-era Russia—to the world in his 1976 Ballets Russes collection. “I had the perfect exotic look they needed for such an out-of-the-box collection,” said Young. Tall, doe-eyed, and with a dusky complexion, Young was a muse to the late French designer, who kept a photo of her in his favourite room of his Rue de Babylone home. With inclusivity at an all-time high across runways, fashion houses this season also looked to the new East, the Indian subcontinent, for inspiration. From Hindu mythology-inspired beauty looks to Indian models slaying the runways, here comes the East wind.

LOOKING EAST