Rahul Mishra, the maverick of designing fabric with a difference, presented The Village at Paris Fashion Week. Rahul, whose ideology believes in sustainable fashion, revival of heritage fabrics presented the collection with e’lan. While addressing the press, Rahul said,”Stories are what offer time travel by warping the fabric of time and space. The villages of the world tell their own similar stories – of fighting a hard battle to sustain its ecological balance. This collection is a soul-searching endeavour and creates a graphical sketchbook of images of a village, I grew up in. The Village, with an ecosystem – that offers an equilibrium between man and nature- of peaceful and sustainable coexistence.”
The collection encapsulates the balanced existence of nature and mankind, traditional and modern, and brings to life finest fibres, weaves and craft techniques, practiced in villages across the world. Return to the land, is the driving force that marks this collection, an outcome of concerted efforts to rehabilitate craftsmen back in to their space from urban dwellings, to take a new step in producing slow fashion. The collection is truly international with fine essence of heritage.
Wool extracted in Gurrundah, a village in New South Wales Southern Tablelands, Sydney finds shape and form in a remote village Baundpur near Calcutta. The village ecosystem is a galaxy of its own that balances primary requirements of survival – environment, employment and empowerment. The Village attempts to preserve the beautiful stories of people, process, and craft. Rahul Mishra, the winner of international Wool mark Price 2014, is known for his sustainable design philosophy and the contribution to the Indian handlooms and craft community through his design interventions.
