I was sitting at a French bar with a photographer, a culture and fashion zine founder, and a stylist, when a question was floated over crisp Chablis: which designers excite you right now? The fact that this conversation was happening in Paris, where, earlier in the day, we had visited the Rescha showcase at Musée Guimet by the much talked about Indo-French designer Charlotte Chowdhury, was what made the penny drop for me. The designers that excite me right now are not the creative directors shifting around maisons like Balenciaga, Dior, Gucci, or Chanel. It’s the fringe designers, cropping up around and sometimes on a very full Paris Fashion Week calendar.
The Rescha showcase at Musée Guimet by Indo-French designer Charlotte Chowdhury
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There is context to this, of course. For decades, India has lived inside Paris fashion as labour, as technique — from couture embroidery ateliers to high jewellery houses. But something is afoot, now. Instead of Paris simply borrowing from the country, Indian and Indian-heritage designers are now writing their own stories in the city.At Haute Couture Week, the established names have made that change visible: Rahul Mishra, Gaurav Gupta, Vaishali S. and, this earlier this month, Manish Malhotra. Around them are contemporary labels such as Kartik Research and Dhruv Kapoor, and diaspora voices like Ashish Gupta and Priya Ahluwalia, who have long shown that Indianness in fashion can be fragmented, bilingual, diasporic: Paris tailoring, Japanese dyeing, American sportswear details, Punjabi memory, Kenyan-Gujarati ritual, Kerala domesticity — all working towards something layered and culturally rich.
