Rahul Mishra’s ‘The Enchanted’, akin to Rumi’s thoughts, is a wilderness beyond the boundaries that define dreams from reality. The designer showcased his latest collection with a digital presentation at the ongoing Paris Haute Couture Week. While this season of Paris Haute Couture Week returns to the runway, the event has both virtual and physical presentations.

The collection features ensembles which bloom from the desire of a Himalayan spring – of a blue sky laden with cotton candy clouds riding on the wind, blanketing fields painted in every colour of the prismatic spectrum, swaying under the gentle warm sun – ‘The Enchanted’ is a work of fantasy.

Rahul Mishra’s collection

The ensembles were replete with floral motifs like poppies, lilies, foxgloves, bellflowers, hollyhocks, iris and anemones. And the medinilla magnifica, and the queen crape Myrtle bloomed aside Aztec and Hibiscus and Buttercup and Daphne – on capes, dresses, jumpsuits and gowns. The collection was a celebration of life in bloom, unadulterated by citylights.

Rahul Mishra’s collection

Travel restrictions constrained the designer from presenting a physical show resulting in the team recreating the fantasy in the designer’s atelier. A flirtation between layers of reality, imagination and surrealist expression, the pieces of embroidery installations soak-in the spirit of nature and reimagine it. Some pieces aim to imitate nature and its elements through various applications of handcraft, forming an arrangement of Himalayan spring in bloom.

Wilderness creeps up the bodies of models, enveloping them in oneness with the essence of life. These pieces, combined with veneered with sheer tulle and luscious silk taffeta enable the looks to render a surrealist vision. Shoulders in gossamer silk organza, cotton candy clouds, birds are embroidered on the surface of the garment like a painter’s afterthought.

This collection is a love poem to nature and a humble tribute to the elaborate biodiversity of Himalayas. It speaks of a new realm that is beyond the complexities of material living, its rights and wrongs.