When Rahul Mishra presented his eighth fashion show at the Paris. Haute Couture Week on July 3-he has previously shown 12 times at the Paris Fashion Week-visitors witnessed something unique: Two Indian embroiderers, Afzalbhai and Noore Alam, sitting by the runway with their needlework stands, stitching glorious colours into the cloth.
Craft has been Mishra's mainstay ever since he launched his label in 2006 and then again, after an academic stint in Milan in 2009. He has been vocal time and again about the importance of craftsmen to the Indian arts and fashion, and most certainly its semi-organised rural economy. In an earlier interview he told me, "Luxury is not consumption, luxury is participation." Mishra, 43, is the only designer to initiate and advocate 'reverse migration, where he encourages artisans living in cramped city shanties to return home to their villages, and pays them an urban salary so that they can build rural economies. His Gandhian approach to fashion seems impractical to every other designer, and yet Mishra goes to Paris season after season on his own penny.
His new collection-'We, The People' was born last year when he read that India would soon overtake China to become the most populous nation in the world. "We learned in every social science class that overpopulation was a bad thing. But our people are our biggest strength, or can be turned into our biggest strength," he says with a smile. "I feel my label is as democratic and inclusive as my nation is. It is by the people, for the people and of the people."
Denne historien er fra July 23, 2023-utgaven av THE WEEK India.
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Denne historien er fra July 23, 2023-utgaven av THE WEEK India.
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William Dalrymple goes further back
Indian readers have long known William Dalrymple as the chronicler nonpareil of India in the early years of the British raj. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a striking departure, since it takes him to a period from about the third century BC to the 12th-13th centuries CE.
The bleat from the street
What with all the apps delivering straight to one’s doorstep, the supermarkets, the food halls and even the occasional (super-expensive) pop-up thela (cart) offering the woke from field-to-fork option, the good old veggie-market/mandi has fallen off my regular beat.
Courage and conviction
Justice A.M. Ahmadi's biography by his granddaughter brings out behind-the-scenes tension in the Supreme Court as it dealt with the Babri Masjid demolition case
EPIC ENTERPRISE
Gowri Ramnarayan's translation of Ponniyin Selvan brings a fresh perspective to her grandfather's magnum opus
Upgrade your jeans
If you don’t live in the top four-five northern states of India, winter means little else than a pair of jeans. I live in Mumbai, where only mad people wear jeans throughout the year. High temperatures and extreme levels of humidity ensure we go to work in mulmul salwars, cotton pants, or, if you are lucky like me, wear shorts every day.
Garden by the sea
When Kozhikode beach became a fertile ground for ideas with Manorama Hortus
RECRUITERS SPEAK
Industry requirements and selection criteria of management graduates
MORAL COMPASS
The need to infuse ethics into India's MBA landscape
B-SCHOOLS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT INDIAN ECONOMY IS GOING TO WITNESS A TREMENDOUS GROWTH
INTERVIEW - Prof DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE, director, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
COURSE CORRECTION
India's best b-schools are navigating tumultuous times. Hurdles include lower salaries offered to their graduates and students misusing AI
