Contemporary dressing and easy, free flowing silhouettes; this new collection celebrates the spirit of spring/summer

From pursuing an engineering degree to building a privately-held fashion house in Chicago, Mac Duggal’s origin story is one of transformation and metamorphosis. Manmohan Singh Duggal’s creative mindset with inspiration from his mother’s fashion sense and styling, saw an opportunity to start his own fashion house, Mac Duggal, in 1984. Mac brought the opulent hand-beaded designs to the United States with a fusion of regal embroidery, daring cutouts, modern bold colours, and traditional jewelled details, all reminiscent and native to India. He began with his first capsule of only 10 dresses and soon discovered his true artistic passion: to make a garment that made every woman feel uniquely beautiful.

From then to now, A-list stars such as Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé, Paula Patton, Shakira, JoJo Fletcher, Sushmita Sen, Priyanka Chopra, Kylie Jenner and many more have been seen wearing his stunning dresses on red carpet events.

In a homecoming of sorts, Mac has now ventured into India with his new Spring Summer ’24 Collection. But before we go into the details of the collection, we ask Mac what took him 40 years to enter the Indian fashion circuit, and he says, “There is a growing demand for high-quality designer wear among Indian consumers who like to get their occasionwear off the rack. This growing demographic of discerning fashion enthusiasts has encouraged our foray into India. Also, after expanding into 51 countries, it was the emotional connect towards my homeland that drew me towards expanding my footprint into the country.”

The new Spring Summer ’24 Collection, Mac tells us, is based on the idea of contemporary dressing and easy, free flowing silhouettes, for day to evening dressing. “With the fast-paced lifestyle of women, our label is all about making ready-to-wear couture accessible and the silhouettes are designed with contemporary sensibilities wherein each look from the collection can be owned off the runway, be it for a daytime luncheon or an extravagant evening affair,” the designer elaborates.

This collection is all about ethereal designs and floral motifs embellished with opulent beads and fused together with a range of pastel colours. There is abundant lace, which Mac has played around with, to give a dainty feminine feel to the edit. The soft pressing technique has helped in achieving a seamless and free flowing silhouette.

The colour palette ranges from deep hues, perfect for evening dressing, such as plum, olive green, antique gold and royal blue. The lighter hues and tones preferred for daytime occasions are varying from sage green, taupe, slate blue and champagne to vibrant tones like marigold yellow, fuschia and cobalt blue.

“We have used a lot of high quality crepes and triacetate that we import from Japan. Some of the couture gowns are also made from chiffon and georgette,” Mac says.

The collection has a lot of drapes and free-flowing silhouettes along with a few pleated and structured ensembles. There is also another part to the collection which is heavily embellished. It is heavily beaded and handcrafted, with lace trims to give it an opulent feel.

Prices range from Rs 40,000 to Rs 1,20,000.

Available at Ogaan, Banjara Hills; and Aza, Banjara Hills.

Email: rupam@newindianexpress.com

X: @rupsjain