Dark side of fashion

[1]

Conventionally one adds a dash of colour to add brightness to a dull season, but the real shades of winter are often dark and grim. At the ongoing Wills India Fashion Week A/W 2013 designers are predicting a colourful season ahead, however a few style mavericks are cautiously highlighting the dark side of fashion.

Using jet black as the base colour, the style gurus use metallic spikes, leather and edgy designs to show the gothic and mystic themes on the ramp.
Designer duo Alpana and Neeraj crafted a line of sharp and structured clothes that were inspired from the creatures of night. The colour palette and combination of various elements like scales and reptilian prints on the clothes displayed the true animal instincts.
Similarly Rimzim Dadu’s ‘My Village’ label explored the unseen and unheard places, and sailed through the black knots and knits in complex ensembles.
A major anti-thesis of the feminine side was by designer Kanika Saluja’s label Anaikka, which wove a story of a strong woman on the runway using sharp metallic and leather-bound silhouettes.
Designer Kanika elaborates, “For this season we used three major colour palettes depicting three phases of a woman’s life. The first part was created skin tone colours that shows purity in a woman’s life when she is born. Later, her purity gets infected by the outside world and she gets destructive. In the final stage she breaks out and reveals her true self, which is powerful and dangerous. The metallic spikes and leather detailings in the ensembles are symbolic of this ‘fatal vanity’, where beauty gets destructive.”
Whereas, designer label Rishta by Arjun Saluja celebrated androgyny and the mysticism that culminates into oneness. Speaking about the choice of colour palette and unusual cuts of the ensembles, Arjun says, “Since the beginning, my brand has always explored the androgyny aspect in fashion. This time too my collection ‘Aik’ (one) was an extension of this belief; we used elements of eastern mystics and aging prints of Azerbaijan rugs on the ensembles. The grey and black colour palette with surface ornamentation was in accord with the theme.”
However, designer Anand Bhushan’s dark tale of goth and mourning was woven beautifully in his Autumn-Winter line ‘Block’.
The designer says, “The mood of the collection is very grim and hence most of the ensembles are crafted in black and shades of grey. While I was doing this collection I lost someone very dear to me and hence it depicts the state of my mind that time. The metallic detailing and structured silhouettes are accentuated using black building blocks.”