OH! CALCUTTA!
Sandwiched between other designers who showed Bollywood-style getups on models strutting to booming film music, Joy Mitra’s presentation at the Splendid India Closet event was memorable for its restraint. That’s not a quality one typically associates with Indian fashion.
The designer took inspiration from Devdas, a novel set in nineteenth-century Calcutta that has spawned several well-known film adaptations, most recently a blockbuster starring Aishwarya Rai and Shahrukh Khan. The models wore billowing ankle-length skirts and pantaloons with short, fitted blouses that buttoned up the back, and sheer draped shawls. Each piece was in a strong, saturated hue with subdued, coppery undertones, and was mixed with pieces in contrasting colors. The combinations were unforgettable: tangerine orange with peacock blue, mustard yellow with burgundy, teal with chocolate brown. The fabrics were embellished with gold seed beads and lines of embroidery in delicate, traditional motifs. But this ornament didn’t have the bright yellow shine of typical zari. Insted it reminded me of gold jewelry that has been worn for decades – dull, mottled, with all the polish worn away.
The models carried cloth purses, puckered like dumplings, on colored cords from their wrists, wore little embroidered patches in their hair, and held their heads high, staring somberly into the distance. They looked like they were on their way to the market or to school; they were not simply swanning about. The modesty in cut (there were a few exposed bellies, but no ankles or cleavage) and decoration, coupled with the richness in the palette, set a somber, nostalgic mood. The garments evoked another time and place, one with its own unchanging codes of dress and behavior. The friend I was with remarked that the clothing was “very old Calcutta." I’ve never visited that city, but after seeing Mitra’s clothes I have a full fantasy of it.