Gaurang Shah walks me through a preview of his new collection for Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) summer/resort 2020 edition, at his studio in Hyderabad. It’s a predominantly monochrome collection comprising 24 saris and 22 ensembles.
A cursory glance and it feels like Gaurang has opted for a colour detox. His collections for LFW are usually a melange of weaving techniques, and colours. Last year, he also brought out a special edition of khadi saris whose pallus had woven replications of Raja Ravi Varma paintings, and for this he used around 600 shades of natural dyes.
“I’ve been wanting to do a black and white collection for a year. Winter-festive edition was not the ideal time for it, so I am doing it now,” he says. The designer who specialises in Indian textile techniques has been travelling frequently and he makes time for this quick preview before flying out of town, again.
The collection is in association with Lakme Salon and the theme is Garam Masala. Tabu will be the showstopper and sport a Kanjivaram lehenga teamed with a sari draped like a dupatta. “I was in Mumbai just recently and showed her the ensemble; she loved it,” beams Gaurang, adding that the actor will recite Urdu poetry on stage, when curtains go up on the collection on February 14.
A model sports an ensemble designed by Gaurang Shah, to be showcased at LFW on February 14
The monochrome line is by no means less complicated than his previous ones for the fashion week stage. Yet again, he will be showcasing a spectrum of woven textiles and jamdani will be the mainstay, done on geometric single and double ikats, paithani, pinhole bandhanis from Bhuj, Banarasi silk, Patan patolas, kalamkari, Kota, Telangana’s Puttapaka, uppada and Kashmir’s kani.
Models will walk the stage in two rows, one sporting ivory white ensembles and the other complementing it with the blacks. All the significant hues of ingredients that go into making garam masala are in the colour palette, in addition to a splash of deep red, beige, pomegranate pinks, and blues on motifs or borders.
Each of his collections involves weavers and craftspeople spending several months over a garment or sari, and Gaurang strives to create heirloom worthy pieces of wearable art.
Gaurang Shah during an earlier edition of Lakme Fashion Week
He points at a dhakai jamdani sari that uses fine count (300) khadi yarn that takes a year to be woven: “The yarn is so fine that you won’t see it clearly with the naked eye,” he says. It’s gossamer, lightweight and bears surface techniques done with finesse.
Another sari has taken the artisans a year for its fine chikankari and another two years just to design the Parsi French knot floral embroidery border. Generous amounts of fabric have gone into some of the lehengas and anarkalis. Imagine eight to 10 metres of fine cotton for an ensemble that fits a 26-inch waist; the extra flare helps to create drama on stage when a lehenga is teamed with flowy kurtas or Anarkalis in contrasting textile technique and a sari draped like a dupatta. Does it ever get too much, outside of the ramp? “Not at all; a few clients buy them as separate pieces — and some of them like to mix and match, using their own saris as dupatta,” Gaurang sums up.
