Designer Aarushi Kilawat is set to break stereotypes with her LFW GenNext debut

As part of Lakmé Fashion Week’s 30th batch of Gen Next designers, The Loom Art by Aarushi Kilawat will be showcasing a fully sustainable collection on Day 1
The Loom Art
The Loom Art

As part of Lakmé Fashion Week’s 30th batch of Gen Next designers, The Loom Art by Aarushi Kilawat will be showcasing a fully sustainable collection on Day 1.

The fashion world has had to reinvent and rethink many of its philosophies over the course of the year. How has the time affected you? How have you realigned your design sensibilities?  

We all have had to face an equal share of it. However, I believe that this is an opportunity to reinvent & redesign things and their due course of channels. It's a chance to reset our ideologies and beliefs and for once, do it right. We'll certainly see a boom in slow fashion from here on. One thing that this pandemic has taught us is to live our life with bare minimums and that's how people will eventually choose to accept living a sustainable lifestyle. 

How would you describe your design sensibilities, and what has influenced your style?

I've always believed that we're here to make an impression and add something worthwhile. I always wanted to narrate stories through my craft and my work. That is something which has always stick by me, as for a fact, I know, that stories last for a lifetime and to do justice to my ideologies, I have always worked on crafts that have a story to tell and are self-narrative. The process of reaching an outcome has always influenced my design sensibilities. 

Tell us about your choice of fabrics and why you have chosen to engage with Arashi Shibori for this collection?  

For me, the idea of sustainable fashion comes from a feeling where a piece of clothing lives a journey and can be transferred from one generation to another. Like an old silk saree of my grandmother was given to my mother and then given to me, I still proudly wear and flaunt that saree occasionally. I choose to work with fabrics that have a longer shelf life & are woven with every beat of emotions.

We've majorly used Chanderi Silk, Matka silk & pure silk which we got woven in Banaras and we've used cotton silks that was made by our weavers in Murshidabad, Bengal. 

The reason why I chose to work with the intricate technique of Arashi Shibori for this collection was the fact that this technique was not known by many. While Shibori has a bigger audience to cater to, Arashi Shibori has a very distinctive feature which are still unknown. The beauty of this craft is that the outcome remains unknown and we can't do Arashi shibori on any piece of fabric which is more than 1 metre in length. So, to create a garment, we had to divide it into different panels and do Arashi shibori on the sleeve, collar, cuff, etc. 

When we put it all together, the colour impression creates an outcome which is totally different and unknown.

What can we can expect to see from the collection?

You'll get to see a lot of comfort fit silhouettes that you'd want to live and breathe in. Boxy jackets, double layer dresses with a variation of sleek and oversized shirts. 

The colour palette is very soothing and towards a very cool tints and tones of colours. We've used a lot of icy blues, white & teals and some batch of ivory, pinks & peaches.

Sustainable fashion is plagued by the perception of it being anti-fit, unstructured and dull.   

Over the years, we've realized that a lot of people have compared our brand to other existing slow fashion brands. They find it hard to believe that we work on the ideologies of slow fashion since our colours are too bright and silhouettes are experimental. We've been trying to break this stereotype from a while now, I believe that our silhouettes and colours are fun, but we make sure that the fit of the garments is body friendly. Comfort is the key whether the silhouettes are anti-fit or edgy. A little pinch of happy colours wouldn't hurt anyone. We really need to brighten up the closets.
 

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