I had never heard of the Gaurav Jai Gupta until esteemed journalist Namrata Zakaria wrote about him in one of her articles back in 2013. Despite reading about him nearly three years ago, this happened to be my first show! And I was in for quite a treat. Little did I know that the fashion designer was also a textile designer (pardon my ignorance on that front). In fact, in an interview I read online at Border & Fall, he quotes 'for my graduation in college, I didn't make clothes, I made fabrics.' Most of the cloth used in his collections are hand-woven at his Delhi based studios. For his FW 13 collection, Gaurav teamed up with Swarovski to create fabrics with crystals woven into them which was something really unique. Not only that, the designer loves to experiment with unconventional materials and often uses stainless steel in his weaves.
For the coming fall, Gaurav stayed true to the India Modern theme. Whilst most of the looks were very contemporary, the techniques to create the textiles were as Indian as it could get through the use of traditional weaving techniques. Flatform shoes and the metallic sheen on the clothes exuded a very futuristic vibe. Comfort was key here as was seen through the various easy to wear dresses (especially the shirt-dresses) created from luxurious hand-woven silk. There was a sense of practicality too with the reversible outfits. Who wouldn't want to be able to wear those stainless steel merino wool pants two days in a row? Just turn them inside out and you're good to go! Jackets in tussar silk and some in merino wool were simple and on point with the season. More separates included capes, tunic tops and culottes. However, what stood out the most were the silk zaree sarees that were draped sculpturally and almost as if they were bandaged around the models.
As one can see from this and past collections, Gaurav Jai Gupta has a firm belief in understated luxury and practicality in dressing. Through the use of unconventional materials in textile design combined with age old Indian weaving techniques, his clothes are truly India Modern.
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