His designs have graced magazines around the world, his collections have been strutted by models and celebrities alike on the runway, and even other fashion designers like Rohit Bal are wearing his creations. We are talking about Designer Shravan Kumar, who recently travelled to Vancouver, and we had a chance to sit down with him and chat about a number of things from his creative vision and design style to bridal trends for the year.
Known for his rich and regal creations, Kumar says fashion is a recurring cycle. A graduate from London School of Fashion Designing, Kumar specialized in colour psychology and uses this knowledge, along with his research-oriented approach towards creating new trends and designs for the season. Moreover, Kumar focuses on “fashion with a cause” and is incorporating the rich heritage of handlooms in his collection, which are crafted by weavers in India. In essence, his goal is to create inspiring works of art that serve as a record of the culture itself and his Fall/Winter 2014 collection, an “ode to weaves and weavers,” embodies this.
Moving on to bridal trends, Kumar says “this season, starting from December, it is all about an oversized look – everything has volume. There is a lot of exaggeration and most beautiful thing, health fashion has come into being. Not just being fit, but also wearing fit clothes. A lot of importance has been given to detailing, embroideries and ornamentation – very understated, very elegant, very demure.”
In terms of colours and fabrics, Kumar refers to Asia for its fire colours of orange, red, maroon and violet, while he mentions velvet is a hot trend right now as it provides texture against fabrics like chiffon and satin.
Kumar says today’s modern Indian brides and grooms are knowledgeable and know what they want from their wedding, including how they want to look on the big day. He goes on to say “the modern Indian bride is very playful, yet wants comfort on her big day. She wants to be very light but at the same time with loads of volume.” To achieve volume, brides can turn to fabrics like tool under lengha skirts or it can be built with layers of fabric. In the past, Kumar has created a gorgeous ball gown lengha, which fused traditional elements with a modern look and created volume for the bride-to-be – very Cinderella-esque!
For grooms, colour is a big trend this year and “men are really comfortable wearing purples, mauves, greens and loads of off-white,” adds Kumar. Moreover, look out for grooms in embroidery. According to Kumar, “embroidery for men is highly in, but basic-on-basic stuff like black on black, off white on off white.” The look is elegant, and not outrageously done, yet features subtle embroidery throughout the blazer or jacket.
His advice to brides and grooms: “Don’t try too hard. Go very basic to evoke the beauty within. Be fit for your wedding, it is all about being happy. It is just a myth that an expensive bridal dress will make you look good. One of the looks should be very Grecian; one of the looks should be very Gothic; and one of the looks should be very high fashion. You should get a taste of all the worlds.”
Kumar’s designs will be gracing the runway at London Fashion Week later this year, and Bollywood fans will be able to see his designs in Rajkumar Santoshi’s upcoming period film starring Deepika Padukone and Shahid Kapoor, who will be donning his creations. He will also be venturing into the bridal lingerie sphere focusing on Indian designs and woven fabrics.
