When fashion meets emotion

The fashion industry runs on constant creativity and churns out novelty. And true to this were the classy, out-of-the-box, and fashionable outfits in designer Ujjawal Dubey’s Antar-Agni collection, which he recently showcased at designer Gaurang Shah’s store in Hyderabad. Ujjawal speaks to CE about his collection, inspirations, and more.

Ujjawal elaborates on his collections, “Our USP is layers and drapes. Even our festive collections have layers, drapes, and cuts. We keep everything quite subtle and controlled and do a lot of monotones. We believe the entire outfit being in one tone is the key and we have always stuck to that. We have introduced colours like blacks and greens and the other colours are dipped in grey.”

Every wonderful creation sprouts from some marvellous inspiration and for this designer, it is the same. “The name Antar-Agni means ‘the fire within’. We have layers of emotions and the collection is simply a portrayal of that. Being true to myself is the core—when we are creating a new collection, we take inspiration from the emotion and mood which comes from within at that moment,” he explains.

The designer says that women’s wear forms about 20 percent of this collection but all pieces created are unisex. “Whatever we do for men has been picked up by women as well. That sort of clarity is there and our clients know us well too. We don’t divide on the basis of gender but we keep certain things in mind when we do it commercially, like shoulders, body types, and we don’t contour it to the body,” adds Ujjawal.

Explaining more about the outfits in the collection, he mentions, “Some designs here are inspired by the dampness of the wall; we picked up that texture and used it on the outfit. It worked out really well for us and it translated in a very interesting way and we are proud of that. We got graphical bits as well and introduced a lot of tissues, metal work, and contrast to blacks as well. We have some accessories too.”

The designer shares that he hails from a small town where there was not much going on fashion-wise. “Small towns are yet to pick up, unlike Delhi and Mumbai which are far more aware. Fashion was not something I thought I would pursue but I studied in NIFT and fabric gave me a sense of truthfulness to explore myself,” he says.

Going down the fashion memory lane to 2014, Ujjawal reveals that he was not what one would call a ‘fashion guy’. “I am a design person and clothing happens to be one of my mediums for this. And since clothing is fashion, I competed in the Lakme Fashion Week and got selected. We kept participating in the years that followed, this year being the tenth,” he says.

The designer has a special place in his heart from Hyderabad. “I have come to Hyderabad before but this is the first time I am showcasing my collection here. Gaurang happens to be my closest friend and a guruji more or less, so we’ve been wanting to come here for a long time. And I simply love the city,” Ujjawal concludes.

Story by Shreya Veronica