International Fashion Moments Inspired by Indian Fashion

When speaking about India, one cannot eschew its sartorial legacy. Replete with handlooms that still employ age-old weaving techniques, embroideries, and fabric painting techniques passed down through generations of artisans, the country’s culture has served as a jumping-off point for designers who have looked to it for inspiration from time to time. While multitudes of Indian designers have spent their time preserving and reinventing traditional textiles and fabrics, many international designers have rejigged them with a slant of their creativity and design ideologies and come up with collections that are a new take on the East-meets-West aesthetic.

The sari might be quintessentially Indian, but the drape has been spotted in the collections of several designers. For his fall 2019 ready-to-wear collection, Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto turned toward sari-like drapes and mixed them up with his signature Gothic style. Through the collection, black fabric swathed models’ bodies and finally culminated in a pallu-like fabric placed almost always on the left shoulder — somewhat resembling the snow style of draping the sari.

Yohji Yamamoto

When it came to the sari, Nepal-born American designer Prabal Gurung, too, showed a style flaunting a pallu in this pre-draped style lined with feather-trimmings and crystals, almost like a sari border, in his resort 2022 collection. This piece was also recently spotted on Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh.

Prabal Gurung

While a pre-draped sari is a relatively new concept made famous by experimental Indian designers such as Gaurav Gupta, Amit Aggarwal and Tarun Tahiliani, the traditional sari — like the ones you would have spotted on your grandmothers —  inspired Jean Paul Gaultier for Hermes’s spring collection in 2008. The traditional garment was given a chic makeover and transmogrified into co-ords. A pleated pallu-inspired fabric with a golden border was draped across a top that featured the quintessentially Indian scoop-neck blouse. But this was not the only piece that evoked the feeling of India. The entire collection was inundated by pieces such as Jodhpur pants, one-shoulder dresses with attached pallusand Nehru collars.

Hermes

Hermes was not the only luxury brand to base a collection entirely inspired by India. For fall 2012, Karl Lagerfeld designed Paris-Bombay that was replete with bandhgala kurtasraw silk and brocade tunics, draped skirts, lame leggings, and signature Chanel tweed jackets embellished with pearls and crystals. The collection, referencing the Indian Maharajas, also featured camp-y necklaces and lots of gold and silver jewellery.

Chanel

Kurtasor at least their westernised renditions, were also aplenty most recently in Armani’s Fall 2021 couture collection where models were seen in textured long single-breasted jacket-type kurtas (or something like them) paired with highly-reflective mercurial silk organza pants.

Armani Prive

Designers didn’t llimit their interpretation of the Indian culture to clothes alone. Many luxury brands have turned toward accessories that carry Indian tokenisms — some upfront and others in a layered, inconspicuous manner.

Jimmy Choo

The net mesh sock booties titled Cynosure by the luxury shoe brand Jimmy Choo feature an excess of hotfix crystals and a crystal and pearl dropping around the top edge of the shoes that mimic elaborate Indian anklets. Inspired by the jewellery often spotted on women during festive occasions, these shoes are a testament to our love for accessories.

Christian Louboutin

Indian aesthetics have also been adopted by the French luxury brand Christian Louboutin in designing its perfume, Loubiraj, as a part of the perfume collection Loubiworld. Formulated by perfumer Daphné Bugey, it boasts notes that are an inspiring mishmash of suede leather, pink pepper and cedarwood, and is inspired by Louboutin’s experience of India. The turban-wearing, jewellery-adorned tiger, too, is symbolic of India’s penchant for maximalism.

Gucci

Even before Gucci became a household name, thanks to Ranveer Singh’s frequent flaunting of the maximalist brand, the leather goods-turned-clothing brand released Boston bags with elephants and rose motifs printed on them as a part of The Souvenir Collection designed especially for India.

Kim Kardashian in Jean Paul Gaultier

In Jean Paul Gaultier’s spring couture 22 collection designed by Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing, bridal nath-inspired nose jewellery with metallic chains was a mainstay in accessories that was modified to lend the pieces a retro-futuristic appeal.

Though Indian ateliers have been responsible for a sizable portion of embroidery and other handiwork spotted in the couture collections of so many luxury brands, seeing designers get inspired by the country’s sartorial heritage is a matter of great pride. Don’t you agree?

Also Read: Designer Anjul Bhandari Is In A League of Her Own