Opening Lakmé Fashion Week in Mumbai, Rahul Mishra’s latest AFEW outing didn’t arrive with the usual flourish of embroideries, but more restraint. “This collection comes from a place of returning: returning home to handloom, and to cotton,” Mishra explained. Reuniting with master weaver Hukum Kohli in Chanderi, he developed a Supima cotton-silk blend that feels preternaturally light, soft, fine, and close to that elusive idea of “woven air.”
There was also a slight note of nostalgia. “This year marks 20 years since my debut as a student at NID Ahmedabad,” Mishra reflected, nodding to his 2006 Gen Next moment at Lakmé. Two decades on, the same textile vocabulary resurfaces, only now considerably more polished.
Cotton, fashion’s perennial overachiever, was elevated to near-philosophical status. Mishra treated it not just as a fabric, but as a cultural constant, threaded through life across the Indian subcontinent. From cradle to cremation, from the everyday dhoti to Mahatma Gandhi’s khadi, it carries both gravitas and lightness. Here, it also got a rather elaborate glow-up.
Silhouettes balanced structure with fluidity, architectural but never rigid. Sari-inspired drapes met corsetry with light-handed ease, while Chanderi techniques moved between barely-there transparency and intricate texture. Even denim took on a softer, more lyrical quality.
As for embellishment, Mishra leaned into discipline. The only decorative indulgence came in the form of dragonflies, embroidered or appliquéd, fluttering across the garments. An unlikely ally in cotton cultivation, dragonflies act as a sort of organic pesticide.
“It’s an ongoing conversation between past and present, craft and innovation, substance and air,” Mishra remarked. Indeed, this collection, which he dubbed White Gold, read like a pause, one where he allowed the work to speak with focus and lightness.
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