Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Center (NMACC) has organized a three-month showcase ‘India in Fashion’ featuring the curated collection of dresses from International couture houses like Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Elsa Schiaparelli, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, Jean-Philippe Worth, Mainbocher, and Yves Saint Laurent to the Indian Couture designers like Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla, Anamika Khanna, Anita Dongre, Anuradha Vakil, Manish Arora, Manish Malhotra, Rahul Mishra, Ritu Kumar, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Sanjay Garg, and Tarun Tahiliani who have gone international. But is the showcase just a way to display the amazing craftsmanship and similarly incredible designs? It is more than that.
The exhibit is currently situated at the NAMMC in Jio World Convention Center (Pavilion 1), the exhibit has been designed by world-renowned curator Hamish Bowels, Exhibition Design Director, Patrick Kinmonth, and Associate Designer Rooshad Shroff. However, there are other exhibitions and showcases organized just alongside ‘India in Fashion’, but for fashion enthusiasts, it remains one and only at the NAMMC.
The exhibition is divided into ten halls, each with its unique style of display, each dedicated to unique designs and unique design houses. The exhibit houses more than 140 unique costumes and pieces including the ensembles, including Chanel’s long brocade coat and Lady Mary Curzon’s matching pants and dresses, Christian Louboutin’s phulkari-embroidered heels, and Sabyasachi’s embellished lehenga-choli, are either entirely or mostly made India. They either come from private collections or museums like the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York have rented them out.
In “India in Fashion,” the layered influences of traditional Indian attire, fabrics, and workmanship on the global fashion sense since the 18th century are explored. Royal courts, European haute couture, contemporary design visionaries, and even global fast fashion have all drawn inspiration from the treasure trove of Indian sartorial and textile traditions, whether it be transparent muslins, whimsical chintzes created on the Coromandel Coast, the varied draperies of the sari and dhoti, or the botehs of Kashmir’s shawls. The show, which is the first of its sort, held in India, will chart the beginnings and growth of the nation’s modern fashion scene.
After visiting the magnificent showcase of global fashion pieces inspired by the Indian traditional handicrafts and weaves, if you want to have your hands on a couple of Indian weaves yourself, you can visit any stall settled just outside the pavilion in the lobby of NAMMC at Jio World Convention center and feel and experience the artisans indulged in the crafting some of the beautiful pieces and the good thing is you can take some home too, well for a fair price of course.
