Vintage with a modern touch

While getting all dressed up for weddings is a fun affair in itself, if you are travelling for a destination wedding, one of the annoying issues is lugging around the wedding outfit while also handling it with care. Indian wear especially is usually quite bulky and can prove to be a bit of difficulty while packing and travelling. And it is this challenge that Anand Kabra chose to tackle in his new destination wedding collection which he showcased on the opening day of the India Beach Fashion Week.
The collection consisted of beautiful vintage prints and embroidery in fabrics like chanderi, mals, satin, georgette and silks with the colour palette ranging from ivory, black, red, ink and chartreuse. "This is a collection of festive separates. There are a lot of jackets, crop tops, skirts, long anarkalis ect that can be worn the way I styled it for the show or the person can pick up a piece, mix and match and have fun with it," says Kabra, adding that he wants to see people get versatile with his garments. "I would hate to tell people what to look like. I can only throw suggestions. If people start looking the way I want them to they will end up looking like closes of each other which to me is stupid. I want to see individuality."
In conceptualising his latest collection, Kabra states that he kept in mind that the clothes have to be light weight, and in order to fit in with the resort like setting needed to be breezy. Two strong point on which he focused on were vintage prints and embroidery which he borrowed from old culture and traditions and reinterpreted these in the modern contemporary avatar.
" For the print I used a typical chintz print which can be observed in Indian museums. Also, I found an interesting border of a child's coat in a book and I took this up and worked further on it," he says.Thus, while most of his collections usually have a lot of emotional research in them and draws from the phase of life that he is going through, with this collection, he states, the research was more visual.
As for designing a collection for Goa, Kabra believes that it would have to be something very relaxed as this is the feeling that he is greeted with everytime he comes down. "Goa has become the melting point of different cultures. But everytime I step off the plane in Goa, the stress just leaves you. The designs would thus have to match this vibe and would need to have effortless elegance."