Illustrations for FUSS x Vogue
FUSS partnered with Vogue India to bring to the forefront, the 20 finalists of Vogue India Fashion Fund 2015. I was overjoyed and jumping like a dolphin when I got the chance to collaborate on this.
Concept:
The idea was to have Rhea as a doll, wearing the garments of the 20 finalists and placing the doll on the work tables of these 20 designers. We read about all these designers' thought process, their inspirations, researched about their collection and put together a work table setup for each of them that would translate their aesthetics and tried to show what their work tables would look like.
Photography & Conceptualization: Prateek Saxena.
Concept, Creative Direction, Styling, Modelling: Rhea Gupte.
Art: Ankita Shinde.
Table 1/20
Nida Mahmood's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + mood board: Irani cafe, India, Dadaism. The brand rejoices colours of India which is to say it thrives on the rainbow.
Table 2/20
Dhruv Kapoor's #worktable
Mood board: discreet luxury, futurism, sleek, beige, silver, fierce, raw, eccentric, floral print on the skirt.
Table 3/20
Shift's #worktable
Designer's inspiration: men's uniform, beige, khaki, ask, wise old soul, minimalism, brutalist architecture.
Table 4/20
(431-88) Shweta Kapur's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board: sporty meets aesthetic, minimalism,
The AW collection was about Shweta’s accident where she fell into a manhole and injured her leg. So to take the story forward, she worked with two prints: the smudge print and the leg print. Both the motifs were arranged so that they resembled the design on the cover of the manhole. Colours were black, white, grey, dusty brown and red: all coming from the inspiration.
Table 5/20
Rouka's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board: nostalgia, Kerela, India, notebook scribbles. This collection is called 'Coming home" and it celebrates the little joys of coming home (and in this context to Kerala) The off-white dhoti transforms itself into quirky clothes for everyday. Just a 'kara(border)' in colour and the rest all in off-white.
Table 6/20
Payal Khandwala's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board: bold graphic prints of east Africa, lines, shapes, colour, texture, luxurious, comfortable.
Table 7/20
Not so serious's #worktable
Table 8/20
Chicory chai's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board: craftsmanship, emotions & emancipation, romanticism | 'Chicory' in the brand's name is the blue flower of chicory plant that was a symbolism of this movement.
Table 9/20
Malvika Vaswani's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board : bauhaus, minimalist, geometric, simple forms, attention to detail, well crafted and constructed, edgy.
Table 10/20
Not like you's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board : nature, people, India's history, old photographs, people from the forgotten past, temples of Bengal, clothings of sanyasis, pink-green-white, fresh, comfortable, contemporary.
Table 11/20
11.11's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board : 11.11 dissolves the distinction between daywear and evening wear creating an identity which is never under or over dressed for any situation. 11.11 has consolidated its roots in the luxury space, with an emphasis on KHADI + creating links between farmers, weavers, vegetable dyeing and block printing traditions.
Table 12/20
ILK's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board :soft grunge, unconventional, youthful, inspired by nature-mushrooms-bees-flowers etc.
At Ilk, nothing is two-dimensional; there is always an element of a third dimension, the fabric surface or the silhouette detail. ILK gathers its essence from everything found in nature such as mushrooms, bees and even something as simple as vines, radically changing that inspiration into a garment that is treasured for generations ahead.
Table 13/20
SVA's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board :Indian, Luxurious, Classic.
The focus of the SS15 collection, is on the fabric, motives and colour story. We have geometric patterns inspired from the architecture of the harems in the Topkapi palace. Picking up various flower pots, infused with lovely geometric designs is the core of the collection. Colour palette varies from deep midnight blues, to soft mints and nostalgic old rose.
SVA is synonymous with head turning traditional fashion and bridal looks. The designs are inspired by the Arabesque Art from the byzantine period, and geometric abstract art.
Table 14/20
Valliyan's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board : Hedonistic . Retro-futuristic . Cultured | VALLIYAN is an esoteric culture with a retro futuristic discipline .Its philosophy - Modern Vintage. Valliyan jewels have a timeless quality that take you back to bygone eras and yet make it relevant to be worn today. Valliyan designs transcend culture, age and time. The Patterns are largely geometric with random inserts of organic shapes. The Colours are metallic, iridescent with earthy tones and texture to achieve true hubble telescopic and sci-fi imagery.
Table 15/20
Aarti Vijay Gupta's #worktable
Table 16/20
Outhouse's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board : “OUTHOUSE” is one of the leading Bridge Jewellery House’s in the country today. However all these pieces are designed keeping in mind the aesthetics of the “Outhouse” girl who is Modern, Bold and a confident woman. The outhouse woman is always the center of attention, she is someone who is fearless and loves experimenting in order to stand out from the crowd.The Baroque movement is always a part of each collection as the designers love adding drama to their pieces.
Table 17/20
Rimi Nayak's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board : Innovative, Youthful and Classic | The collection is inspired by the cartographic art of the modern era. Cartography, the art of making maps, is an age-old technique which is represented in the collection graphically and through a plethora of interwoven webs: of intricate surface-embellishment techniques, forming the thematic base. The collection is characterised by a combination of bold colour palettes and geometric figures to create a series of abstract maps in a chiaroscuro of its own.
Table 18/20
SVJ's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board : Club luxe, minimal chic, glamorous. | SVJ is a fine leather brand by Sanya V Jain, devoted to the 'good life' and celebrating and living it well through fine goods. Great importance has been placed on the craftsmanship and materials used. SVJ’s latest collection embodies the key concept of Cubism which is that the essence of objects can only be captured by showing it from multiple points of view simultaneously. Since the core driving thought for the movement was that all tangible things are made up of geometric forms, this is easily reflected in the entire collection. All the pieces in the collection are inspired by strong spirited female personalities - for example, the Monroe, Perry and Kunis.
Table 19/20
Anavilla's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board : Organic, comfortable, chic. | Brand Anavilla is rooted in Indian craft and textiles. The designer works with natural materials like linen and cotton, loves the texture of linen--strong, rustic and yet so contemporary. Anavilla is about clean shapes and easy silhouettes. Simplicity is the core. "Less is more" these three words define the brand aesthetic.
Table 20/20
Monkey see monkey do's #worktable
Designer's inspiration + Mood board : Modern, challenging, confident. | The label is a sweetmash-up of contrasts - the old and the new, masculine and feminine, elegant and relaxed, with
sculpted tailoring and a rebellious edge. The collection revolves around the idea of juxtaposing sweetness and violence. Taking cue for colours from the works of digital artist Hsiao-Ron Cheng, somber hues of blue, mint, lavender and charcoal form the basis of motifs of guns embroidered on dresses, tops, jumpsuits, etc. The silhouette remains away from the body. Pleats are used extensively throughout the collection, not just as an adornment, but also as a vital detail used to give movement to the clothes and the wearer.
Rhea and I had so much fun working on this together! We were working on a very tight timeline. So something which would require us 3-4 weeks was completed in just 4 days of working day and night. If you haven’t checked out Rhea’s blog ‘FUSS’ yet, you must head there right away. This was a project which was very demanding on many different levels for Rhea. Right from sourcing all the 20 garments from 20 different designers across the country, shooting the garments, returning them, coordinating with all the designers to put together a document filled with their thought process-inspiration-background of their collections so that we could brainstorm together and work on deciding the elements to include on each of their work table illustrations. A huge applause for Rhea to pull this through.
