Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Perhaps, with one of the most refreshing collections this season at Paris Fashion Week, Rahul Mishra not just bowled over the spectators watching the designs unfold live, but many miles away Indians watching it on social media took pride in what just transpired on the runway. His collection was more than craftsmanship, it was heritage and most importantly divine feminine power on the global stage.
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Titled Devi: The Eternal Muse, Mishra’s Autumn/Winter 2026 couture collection, unveiled on July 7, drew from the timeless iconography of ancient Indian temple sculpture, transforming centuries-old stone carvings into garments that felt less like dresses and more like living monuments.
For a designer who has made hand embroidery his signature since becoming the first Indian to show regularly on the Paris Haute Couture calendar since 2020, Devi marked perhaps his most architectural outing yet. Instead of looking to florals or nature—motifs that have long defined his work—Mishra turned to the sculpted deities, apsaras and celestial figures etched into the walls of India’s ancient temples. “It’s almost like time travel,” the designer said of the collection, imagining what those stone figures might look like if they stepped off the temple walls and into the present. And boy, he did turn his vision into reality.
Models appeared in sculptural silhouettes rendered in stone grey, weathered ivory, antique gold, black and muted beige, their bodies transformed into statues through painstaking embroidery. Corseted bodices mimicked carved reliefs, while exaggerated shoulders, monumental collars and sharply engineered silhouettes echoed the grandeur of temple architecture rather than conventional tailoring. The effect was one of suspended time—as though ancient sculpture had momentarily come alive.
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Dense silk thread embroidery recreated the texture of weathered stone, while metallic zardozi, dabka work, pearls, crystals and bugle beads layered each garment with astonishing depth.
What appeared from afar to be carved sandstone revealed itself, on closer look, to be thousands of hours of handwork executed by Mishra’s atelier, blurring the boundary between textile and sculpture.
And that’s not it. Mishra took the theatrics ahead with traditional clay artisan Sumant Kumar. The designer collaborated with Kumar for the ceremonial headpieces inspired by ancient temple crowns, while celebrated milliner Stephen Jones created dramatic sculptural headwear.
The front row reflected anything it was the designer’s growing global resonance. Cardi B arrived in a custom ivory Rahul Mishra couture look, a reinterpretation of one of the show’s sculptural silhouettes, while Isha Ambani wore a bespoke grey corseted ensemble that echoed the collection’s architectural language. Together, they embodied Mishra’s contemporary vision of the Devi: powerful, adorned and unapologetically monumental.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
