Inspired by surreal elements with a hope to make art more wearable, is how we perceive the latest collection of Kolkata-based Bobo Calcutta. Titled Le Jardin Exotique, this collection was showcased recently at Doha and is almost a recreation of an imagined garden with hybrid iguanas and butterflies. “My motifs are almost like a children’s scrapbook where fantasies are allowed to take their own course without a barrier of reality, like a rose blooming in the pond and two moons in the night,” says Ayushman Mitra, the creative director of the label, who has made a constant attempt to talk about liberation of love since the time he established his label more than three years ago.
The designs from the label are often heavy on art. “Art is a way of life and I want to make it my skin rather than hanging it on the wall,” says the alumnus of the Condé Nast College of Fashion & Design, London. “I had always been a painter, and I realised that paintings in the gallery are only restricted to the privileged section, so my idea was to push art outside of it with a hope to make it more accessible,” he says. The artwork Ayushman creates is first scanned and digitally transferred onto fabric. On his latest designs, one can spot zardosi, beadwork and surface embellishment with stones. One of the motifs that are prevalent in most of his designs are two people engaged in a lip-lock, and they are genderless faces, stresses the owner. “It might not lead to a solution, but starting a conversation about the freedom of love is where it all begins. His fashion is all about embracing oneself first,” he says. No two pieces are alike, assures us Ayushman, highlighting the exclusivity of the label.
To create his ensembles, he uses muslin on a regular basis, and Le Jardin Exotique is the first time that Bobo’s collection was displayed internationally. There were 14 heavily-embroidered ensembles that were up for display at Katara Art Culture (previously Katara Art Center), Doha. “The people there were welcoming about bridging the gap between fashion and fine art,” says the designer, who works out of his studio in Jadavpur. From the latest couture collection, one can check out jackets, velvet shift dresses and A-line dresses worthy of red-carpets!
Available online. Rs 4,800 onwards for shirts. Rs 20,000 for layered dresses.