Amit Aggarwal’s couture collection at ICW 2018 was a surreal mix of fact and fantasy

Fashion designer Amit Aggarwal proved once again that he is a wizard with fabrics on day three of India Couture Week 2018. See the highlight of his innovative debut couture collection, Crystalis. Actor Shilpa Shetty Kundra was his showstopper in a racy metallic gown.

Science and mathematics played a crucial role in fashion designer Amit Aggarwal’s debut India Couture Week 2018 collection, Crystalis, on Friday. The designer, whose showstopper Shilpa Shetty Kundra, made a statement in a sharp, angular saree-inspired gown, celebrated the “beauty of formation” in the collection. In his controlled, craft-intensive explorations of the relationship between nature, mankind and technology, Aggarwal once again opened up new possibilities for fashion’s future with tantalising shapes (controlled swoops of volume, classically glam drapes, structured sleeves) and hues (a line-up of bold jewel tones, as well as softer pearls, golds, glacier greens, smoky purples.)

“In this collection, we have put together molecules that form a unit, and units put together form a crystal. So our collection is called Crystalis, as crystals are what we have put together in the collection,” Aggarwal told Hindustan Times in an interview before his show.

Aggarwal’s designs combined sculptural yet agile fabrications and accentuated and enhanced the female body: From asymmetrical maxis, midis and minis with giant ruffles, dramatic frilled-out handkerchief hem to tops, dresses, gowns, sarees that had one shoulder artfully askew.

The Crystalis theme played out in a series hand-crafted dresses infused with 100% Kashmiri lace (from textile designer Tanira Sethi), shimmering beads, his signature molten polymer, metallic cords, jewel toned embellishments, laser-cut geometric embellishments, sharply cut innovative patterns.

For this collection, Aggarwal explored a range of handcrafted three-dimensional linear lines in various forms and motifs. These were embellished with intricate embroidery to give the fabrics a unique visual and tactile quality. “Our metallic and crystalline textiles sculpt, drape and travel in much the same way, eventually unraveling to reveal the elegant form of the female body,” the designer explained his collection in an Instagram post.

For Aggarwal’s show, Sasha and Kaabia Grewal of Outhouse Jewellery designed jewellery inspired by various complex crystalline structures and intricate organic forms such as that of metallic chrysalis cocoon. Each jewellery piece was crafted using materials and metallic colours that blend effortlessly with the colour palette of Aggarwal’s collection. It’s like the metallic, kind of magic vibe had taken over the show’s make-up and beauty look also. The make-up was as shiny as it gets: The make-up artists got creative, experimenting with unexpected, multimedia forms of glitter, glimmer, shimmer and shine when it came to the eye looks they crafted for Aggarwal’s couture runway. We loved the subtle glimmery effect of layered violet cream shadow over pink and purple tinged glitter on the models’ lids.

For the final touch, a range of textile techniques, from the signature polymer details to opulent bugle bead embellishments, were employed to craft customised shoes in metallic hues from shoe couturier Nidhi Bhandari.

India Couture Week, presented by Hindustan Times and Sunil Sethi Design Alliance, will be on from July 25 to July 29, in Delhi.

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