For her Fall Winter 2013 collection entitled ‘Raat ki Rani’ shown at the recent Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week, designer Nikasha Tawadey chose the empowered, independent, and spirited Indian woman as her muse. Dipping into archival 1920s photos of legendary Indo-Hungarian artist Amrita Sher-Gill for inspiration, Nikasha’s outfits were sensual, and experimental – blending Western style with Indian aesthetics. “I’ve gone a bit edgier in this collection,” says Nikasha. “For example, we’ve redone the Little Black Dress, and fused it with our own tradition, and made it into a churidar-kurta version.”
Nikasha played with Indian jewel-tones and one of the subcontinent’s favourite hue, molten. So she had champagne kurtis with transparent pants, a standout rani-pink Maharashtrian-sari inspired jumpsuit, with an embroidered top. Midnight blue and emerald-green layered kurtas, often with sheer churidars or salwars were shown with sharara suits in crimson. The designer also studied the textiles at the Calico Musem in Gujarat, to work with jamdani, quilting, tissue, jacquards, and handwoven brocades, which was incorporated in waistcoats, tops, trousers, saris. Some of her prettiest pieces were sequinned underskirts (often worn with velvet jackets), that gave a glimpse of shimmer without being over the top. The clothes were often accessorized by the very north-Indian parondi hair adornment, and nimbu-mirchi charms (to ward off the evil eye, found in every home in north India).
“We have so much of our own traditional textiles to work with. We just need to contemporize them so that more people can wear them. Yes, we do need to revive these, and we have to put in an effort, but it’s worth it,” says Nikasha.
Nikasha’s Fall Winter line is available at select stores in India (at Ogaan, Ensemble, Evoluzione, Carma, Elahe, Aura, Elan, Collage, Shray, Rudraksh, and at Nikasha Studio), as well as in London, Thailand, Indonesia and Dubai, and Mythology in Singapore.
Text by Priya Rana