Catching Light

With India emerging as the next fashion frontier, budding designers like 2020 LVMH Prize nominees Supriya Lele and Priya Ahluwalia are proud to showcase the country’s values through a modern, global lens

- Rosana Lai

Dusty pink stone façades lining the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh, central India, glowed warmly against the first rays of sunrise. Longboats in a rainbow of hues dotted the water, some gliding serenely behind a young Indian model dressed in sheer, colour-blocked layers with an asymmetrical neckline and ruching, like a shadow of a modern sari. The dress was by Supriya Lele, who debuted at London Fashion Week last fall.

Lele, a British-Indian designer who was born and raised in the town of Ipswich in Suffolk, travelled to her ancestral town in India last December in what began as a creative journey with photographer and friend Jamie Hawkesworth. They wanted to shoot her latest collection—a vibrant amalgam of modern minimalism and Indian codes—against this scenic backdrop, but the trip soon became a deeply emotional one as well. “We visited this holy river where my father’s ashes were scattered and it was so moving to see my work and interpretation of my heritage, which has previously only been shown in Europe, resonate and retain the same narrative there,” says Lele. “In a way this river became a metaphor of sorts—it was like a homecoming.”