Preview: Sabyasachi’s LFW Winter Festive 2016 Collection

The master couturier and grand finale designer at LFW Winter Festive 2016 talks about heroing Lakmé’s Illuminate collection, working with shimmer and what people should expect from the collection.

What was the starting point of the collection?
“The make-up was the starting point. It’s the hero of the show, as it is with all of Lakmé’s grand finales. We were planning to do a line about beautiful shimmer anyway. Then when Purnima Lamba, head of innvations at Lakmé, asked if I wanted to do the grand finale and told me their theme was ‘shimmer’, under the Illuminate story, I instantly agreed. So it worked out to be quite in sync.”

What is the colour palette for the collection?
“We’re defining a colour palette which is woven around the theme of the make-up — which is a lot of dusty, smoky, shimmery metallics along with strong contrasting jewel tones, like a deep emerald, a rich oxblood, a coffee maroon among others.”

Since the Sabyasachi beauty looks, so far, have always been quite muted or pared back, what is your take on ‘Illuminate’?
“As a designer I don’t offer myself any limitations. What one needs to do is redefine oneself under the same school of thought. So you’ll see shimmer done in a very Sabyasachi way. I like a little study in contrast and when there is the element of an oxymoron involved. If you look at the way shimmer is usually used, a very conservative women would probably wear shimmery make-up with matte clothes and a reckless woman would wear shimmer with shimmer. And in this show, we have done both.”

What can people expect in terms of look and feel of the clothes?
“People say that a writer only writes one big story in his life and the rest of the stories he chooses to write in his lifetime are always a derivative of that one original school of thought. You’ll see the same applying here. Our clothes have always been about nostalgia, so that feeling will be there in this show as well. For me it’s going to be same-old-same-old. But for a lot of people, this collection will be visually different because our silhouettes now vary from super racy to super short to super long. So it might raise a few eyebrows, with people thinking Sabyasachi is going through a midlife crisis!”

What are your favourite pieces from the collection?
“The two pieces we have used in the campaign were the starting points of the show — one is a shimmer on shimmer look and the other is a matte and shimmer combination. I like the long, embroidered velvet coats and I love the super-short dresses. We’ve also done a series called India Baroque, which is about little shift dresses and A-line tent dresses which are all super lavishly embroidered and meant to be worn completely pared down.”