There is always something ruminative about Rahul Mishra’s collections that are almost always laden with his deep love for nature. His Haute Couture online showing — The Dawn, Couture Spring 2021 — that premiered on hautecouture.fhcm.paris and rahulmishra.in, is his ode to the fascinating world of mushrooms and the promise it holds of life. “I have done a collection which I have never done before and this will start a new chapter in making pieces for us,” Rahul told The Telegraph. The designer has also tried his hands at jewellery designing with An Ode To Spring as part of Rahul Mishra X Confluence, a move that he describes as “a natural progression”. Over to Rahul.

Tell us about The Dawn, Couture Spring 2021. It looks hauntingly beautiful...

I was watching this documentary by Sir David Attenborough called A Life On Our Planet. This film starts and ends too at a beautiful place. But why call it beautiful when it is the site of one of the biggest catastrophes humans have inflicted on themselves? Chernobyl. The nuclear incident saw people flee the place overnight. It is almost like a mini experiment on how apocalypse might happen.

He made a beautiful statement, which we realised in this lockdown that nature reclaims its territory faster than we can think. What humans can do is only save their future on the planet, but they cannot save the planet itself. Nature knows how to create a new beginning and that’s why it is called The Dawn. In Chernobyl, you will see mushrooms growing everywhere and large trees growing on top of the buildings and animals living inside the buildings.

In my childhood, there was this big tree and it was damaging one of our boundary walls and my uncle got it chopped. After the first rainfall, it developed giant mushrooms overnight. The mushroom carried the similar kind of growth circle that the tree had. It is almost like death has happened and mushrooms grow out of this decay.

Mushrooms are peculiar. Nicholas P. Money, professor of botany, from Texas, says mushrooms have an amazing capability. They grow the fastest, sometimes overnight dew gives them complete growth. For me, mushrooms are the most amazing natural engineering.... After death and decay, mushrooms are going to create life back on the planet. Then these mushrooms give way to wildflower growth. The flowers then attract insects to pollinate.

It is the cycle of life...

That’s why I went to shoot at the (marble) dumpyard in Kishangarh. It is like a lifeless place and I wanted to shoot it at a lifeless place, almost like post-apocalypse, how life will regenerate from mushrooms. They are almost like angels sent on to the planet to create life. I also thought of shooting it in a forest where a lot of trees had been cut, but I was finding it difficult to find. I found the dumpyard through my stylist friend Priyanka Yadav in November and started making the collection keeping that in mind.

This dumpyard has got filled in just 12 years. We make the most beautiful buildings but don’t think about the planet, but I think if we could have celebrated life like we celebrate architecture, our planet could have been different. An entire planet has become a dumpyard for humans. We are creating a barrier from nature and that is killing us. The models were almost like these trees, on which mushrooms are growing.

The karigari is mind-blowing...

We did a new kind of construction. Garment construction is like a linear process. You make a pattern and then a khaka, which goes into embroidery followed by stitching and then the garment is done. In this the process was circular. The first thing was to stitch the garment. Pattern-making happened for every mushroom. Every mushroom had a different kind of a fall. It was sculpted on the pre-stitched fabric.

There was no reference point on how to construct these kinds of clothes. So, we did a lot of hand-hemming. I wanted the mushrooms to fall in the exact same way as they fall in nature, so that it doesn’t start looking like ruffles. Hundreds of mushrooms are separately tagged with no fixing or setting. When you touch these garments, they feel like actual mushrooms. It took us six months. The body of work increased, so the number of clothes decreased. I only made 22 clothes, out of which strong and intricate clothes are just 10. With the number of p eople in the team, it is still difficult to produce this body of work. Couture is like art for me. I have stayed away from the painterly kind of embroidery. We can hand-embroider anything right now... that’s the confidence. This was a far bigger challenge where the embroidery is shape-shifting and sculpting the look. The garments are lightweight. These are neutral.

New vistas opening up for you too... with jewellery?

It’s like exploring my own self in various mediums. What I really enjoy is designing anything. Jewellery was a manifestation of a very detailed piece done in a different medium.... metal casting, stones. It took us a lot of time. Swarovski approached us two years back. My team and I had to familiarise with the kind of thing that we want to do, jewellery pieces to bridge modern sensibility with our signature motifs. We wanted to create pieces which are unique and now, a state of mind. We did a capsule line, but now we are giving it a serious thought. It looks like we will keep doing it. The experimentation will get intense. We wanted to create pieces which are elegant and go with your personality, like it is a tiny embroidered motif that you are wearing. And then play with colour. It was like creating a canvas for us.

Spring is at the heart of the collection...

Yes... I wanted a limited edition, almost like spring. You enjoy it for a limited time. You can see all our motifs over there, from our last eight-10 years of designing and the idea was how to bring them to life in a different medium.

What’s ‘you’ in the collection?

I have started noticing this kind of jewellery after my marriage. Divya (wife) doesn’t like the traditional sort. It also represents the strong part of Divya’s personality. When we were doing this, her being there also helped a lot in putting things together. Jewellery is supposed to be enjoyed. It is a part of looking beautiful. This range is a carefree one.

There are pichwai motifs, like floating lotuses and open flowers. If you see our necklaces, you will see all our flowers are floating and they have got a complete organic form. The danglers too have a complete organic form, but using our primary colours.

What do you love about jewellery?

When you think about Indian weddings and occasions, the way people bring out their jewellery... there is a beautiful human side to it. The way jewellery is passed on from generation to generation is really amazing. There is beautiful pahadi jewellery of real gold with simple motifs. There is something called pauchi. It is a little bigger than rai dana and you sew it on top of a red fabric and then it is woven and that is passed down from generation to generation. Divya has a few of those and they are a few of my favourite pieces of jewellery. She also likes fashion jewellery. Aarna (daughter) loves to style herself. She’ll wear it on top of her sweater, almost like fashion jewellery.

Jewellery shoot credits:

Photography: http://https://instagram.com/karishmabediphotography?igshid=3zmtjhoskfoh

Make-up: https://instagram.com/shrutiandyashaswini?igshid=eao88lw20qvh

Hair: https://instagram.com/pushkinbhasin?igshid=10i5loa27v3bp

Florists: https://www.instagram.com/the_floralpursuit/

Videographer: https://instagram.com/nitinn_s?igshid=1pwrxg9d5s683

The Dawn credits:

A film by Storyloom Films

Film direction: Keya Vaswani & Nidhi Karmath

Pictures: Hormis Antony Tharakan & Taha Ahmad

Styling: Priyanka Yadav

Shoes by: Rahul Mishra X OCEEDEE Shoes

Location: Kishangarh Marble Dumpyard, Rajasthan, India

Models: Laura Gavrilenko, Mansi and Nitin Baranwal