‘On a personal level, I enjoy the process more than the final outcome.’ — Rahul Mishra

Rahul Mishra is a wizard. One who conjures the impossible, his imagintion weaving dreams. Bewilderingly beautiful and jaw-dropping. Recently, in Mumbai, at Jio World Plaza, BKC, Rahul and his team’s mind-boggling artistry was the cynosure of all eyes and the visitors lapped up every bit of the Rahul Mishra Paris Haute Couture Week Retrospective 2020-2025, that was laid out for them.

Rahul chatted with us about the avenue of installation that summed up years of hard work and daring to dream, his emotion-laced Paris Haute Couture Spring 2025 line, The Pale Blue Dot, the title of which was inspired by American astronomer Carl Sagan’s book ‘Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space’ and one that explored “loss and the slow process of healing” realised by his team of over 2,000 fashion workers, and his pret-a-porter brand AFEW Rahul Mishra’s showcase at Lakme Fashion Week X FDCI.

The Rahul Mishra Paris Haute Couture Week Retrospective is extraordinary and a great idea. We have not seen your pieces this up-close. When you pass this avenue now, what comes to mind? Are you nostalgic?

I don’t know if nostalgia is the right word. I always cherish memories. They may be 10 years old or 10 months old. Divya (Bhatt Mishra, co-founder, Rahul Mishra and AFEW Rahul Mishra, and his wife) and I are more nostalgic about when we see young pictures of our daughter (Aarna), than our work.

That gives us beautiful happiness as young parents, how we were, how we are right now and how we see a future with her. And work is always a reflection of your state of mind or what is happening to you. A lot of stories are so personal for me. Either they are connected with our daughter, or they are connected with some concern or with some personal loss or a personal aspiration of building a house in the hills. As you know, for me, work and personal life go hand in hand.

What kind of progress do you see in your work over the years?

As a designer, I feel like you are always unhappy with what you have done so far.

How can you be unhappy?! This is like a fantasy!

There is a beautiful quote by Beethoven where he says a true artist is never happy, never proud of his own work, because he sees the work miserably lacking in a distant dream, which he wants to see, which he may never achieve (a ‘true artist is not proud, he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal; and though others may admire him, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun’).

So that sums up the true state of mind of being an artist. On a personal level, I enjoy the process more than the final outcome. The outcome is always the outcome of an intent and the way you choose to travel. And it is also about new perspectives.

What I get confident about is when I share my perspective and people appreciate it, it means my perspective is being valued, and I’m free to look at even mad perspectives or beyond perspectives. So that is what I enjoy the most.

There is a Madagascar dress here, and it reminds me of the happy times I spent with Aarna. She wanted to watch Madagascar again and again. And I created a whole jungle inspired from that. Sometimes what it requires is extra observation and a little alternate perspective.

Are you sometimes envious of your craftspeople?!

It’s teamwork. It’s almost community art, which you see. I am very proud of my team. I am like a captain, and I am proud of that bowler who just took eight wickets or 10 wickets. I am a captain who is very proud of the openers who have just scored a double-century stand. You can’t be envious, you have to be proud, and you have to be confident about this. And what you realise, maybe the limit is not their talent, the limit is in your visualisation, in your creative vision. So, the more the creative vision, the more challenging the vision, you can deliver much more in the world.

Did you feel lighter after showing at Paris (Couture Spring 2025) this time?

So, I can’t really say like, any feeling is constant for even an entire day. Although, like, I’m feeling very thankful and have a lot of gratitude, at the same time, the personal loss which I’d gone through (Rahul lost his dad), you know, in the last couple of months, now, I’ve kind of started accepting it. But still, like, every day, there’s some conversation or other, like, you know, for example, we just had our anniversary, Divya and I, on February 14, the first anniversary without my father. So, you know, all those kinds of things, they keep coming to you. Grief also comes like a wave. Remembrance always happens like that. You always remember, but you know, you kind of come out of sadness in the process.

Can you talk about black in ‘The Pale Blue Dot’ a bit?

The collection was happening for a long time. When the collection was 75 per cent ready, I lost my father. But yeah, there was a struggle with my father’s health. I was going through that, you know, last season’s collection was also in the middle of that. Sometimes you feel hopeful, sometimes you feel, you know, disappointed, sad.

So I was going through all those emotions. But when you look at a concept, you know, as a designer, I always believe, I think colour is something which we are able to do really well. Flowers are something which we create really well. A floral colourful collection, first thing comes to mind is Rahul Mishra. When Taylor Swift wore something many people congratulated me and asked ‘is this your outfit’ because it looked like (one)… colourful flowers, people thought it’s Rahul Mishra.
So that was becoming a signature as well as strength. So as a creator, as an artist, how do you step away, throw all the signatures out of the window and design the collection.

It’s a risk also…

It’s a risk also. Almost like you love wrestling and you say, ‘Oh, you tie my right hand and then I’ll try to win it’. So this was a kind of risk which we all really enjoyed.

And also, when you think about, you know, earth, when you think about rejuvenation, we think about like cities, when you think about everything, there’s so much colour around, blue sky, greens, but sometimes the importance of a message goes missing when you have too many elements.

So we wanted to show a bit darker world, I would say partly because I was going through that kind of journey on a personal level, with my father’s illness.
So yeah, it was a bit of grief.

So we had an absence of colour just to communicate this message, like, when you look at earth, when you look at ‘The Pale Blue Dot’, when you look at our planet, and how we look at cities and how cities may look like without humans.

One can visualise how these ghost towns may look like. Eventually, you know, with all our progress, we are somehow progressing towards that situation where most of these places are going to be uninhabitable. India is a notoriously polluted place in the world.

These are not living conditions. We don’t have clean water, clean air and clean food. Food is adulterated and full of antibiotics and pesticides. How do you feel positive about it, when you’re actually looking at this subject?

There was some research that showed that every one year you spend in Delhi NCR, it cuts away five years of healthy life. It is an existential crisis. Every city has got its own problems.

There’s a beautiful documentary by Sir David Attenborough where there’s a section on Chernobyl. He says even at the worst or gravest of mistakes, nature is going to bounce back, and humans may not be part of that.

That is where gold came in with a bit of hope, with a bit of thought. And everybody told me to create a little hope in the collection. Otherwise, the collection would have been completely black. Gold happened because, ultimately, you know, like any storytelling, you have to end things on a positive note.

This is your most personal collection for sure, but also the most controlled collection, yet at the same time, the most structural in terms of shapes?

Sometimes what happens is that you have so much strength, a plethora of techniques which you have got, how do you restrain. How do you know that you are going to just do this? You don’t want to confuse people and yourself. So, you know, in that way, restraint is like really the right kind of word. I agree with you, in terms of creating something which is to the point, which is deeply impacting you at the same time.

And at the same time, like, you know, how architectural something can get in the most controlled way. Also it has to look modern and at the same time, it should allow us to explore a new idea, a new thought process. And it’s also a lot of mixed medium as a thought process.

It was a very wide subject with earth and the apocalyptic time. Entire movies can be made out of it. How do you represent it in 40 garments or 35 garments? It was very challenging. It also needed to have a pictorial representation, which is also very directly connected and not like just a metaphor.

A lot of times, as artists, we get a lot of freedom when things are metaphoric. For example, we are creating a drape, which we say is waterfall-inspired. It is achievable, you can create it, but when you actually start working on a cityscape, how they appear like, when you start working on an architectural thought process, it also pushes the entire team. And it was definitely a difficult collection, because we stayed away from our strength.

I focused on black ravens. After someone’s passing, you offer food to crows for a period of time. Crows are supposed to be the connection between the departed soul and you. Also, crow is the one which creates the most amount of scavenging. They clean the mess. And, we don’t like them. This is the irony about humans. People also, who clean our mess, we say, they are untouchable (laughs).

How do you challenge the whole idea of beauty? What is beautiful? Crow is the most beautiful and intelligent bird out there.

So, you know, in that way, it’s also the idea of fashion also challenging the whole idea of maybe sometimes trying to make ugly pretty.

That moment with Jordan Roth (seven-time Tony Award winner) was so beautiful...

So I met Jordan in September, while I was making this collection. I was discussing this collection with him. He came to meet me, see me for my AFEW presentation in Paris. He was curious.

Carl Sagan has inspired generations, and he’s the most powerful voice out there. Also, in a very philosophical manner, the way he looks at science. How he predicted, you know, and something which is almost like a prophecy…. ‘there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves’.

So it was very inspiring. I was like, who are the people who have done something which I feel inspired about in terms of, you know, saying something about the planet.

So yeah, Jordan Roth happened. When we met, I showed him this garment and he really, really loved the whole idea. He wanted to wear two garments, which is very, very nice of him.

He instantly got it during the fittings. His emotions were just amazing. The way he embraced this whole look, the way he embraced this moment, this almost becomes a moment in history, you know.

Lakme Fashion Week x FDCI celebrated 25 years of Indian fashion... You’ve had a long journey with Lakme Fashion Week...

You know, the most intimate memory is like, coming as a student who was studying at NID in 2006. And I tailored my entire collection with the help of one tailor, made all the patterns. Amazing. Didn’t have a suitcase, so carried clothes in a carton. We got a standing ovation, you know, during that time. Then you start seeing your journey. I also met Divya in 2006, after my first show over here. So somehow, you know, I got like a little credibility. So Divya also said yes to me (laughs). So the GenNext show gave me a lot of good things, a lot of elevation.

I remember when I was returning to NID, the reporters and photographers were calling. I said I am coming by train. And now, you know, looking back... I am just beyond thankful for all the support and love.