When art and fashion collide at Lakme Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2019

When fashion is the canvas

Silk drapes painted red with gold and black lines strewn across. Three models stand on the drapes as a part of the earthy, rustic display, while another clings to a ladder. A 23-year-old artist bends over the installation, painting and readying her masterpiece as onlookers pour into the 'Art Meets Fashion' exhibit on Day 1 at Lakmé Fashion Week. "I wanted to give viewers an idea of how individual each piece is to me," says Helena Bajaj Larsen, while laughing about the lack of "karigars (workers)" at her disposal. When starting out on new artworks, she begins with laying out the white silks "like canvases".

Growing up with a mother who is an artist, Larsen was influenced by the arts from a young age. "I grew up as a part of an artistic community, going to gallery openings with my mom and living in one of the art heavy cities of the world – Paris. I liked the idea that design is art but functional and so I went to design school and came back to textiles because it's the closest thing you can do with art within fashion," she says.

Like most artists, she's inspired by everyday things. "I tried to be inspired by things in my environment than by other people. I like to look at things that are non-fashion and non-art and translate them."

Art within fashion for Larsen is important to dilute the commercialism. "Art and textiles is a good way to remind you that fashion also has a sense of craftsmanship and design that are essential to it's being and it's not necessarily about selling to the masses."

The Bengali Picasso

For Ayushman Mitra of Bobo Calcutta, art and fashion are just as intricately interlinked as it is for Helena. At his installation, models in bright, tropical colours surrounded one of the artist-designer's own paintings. While he doesn't paint on his fabrics, the process of art to fashion is linear for Bobo Calcutta. "The paintings come first – a series of four to five – and we develop a set of prints from the paintings," explains Mirta, whose quintessential Picassoesque faces with Jamini Roy eyes find expression in most of his works. "The idea stems from a cause that I feel strongly for and then I convey it in terms of the painting and then the designs. I call Bobo Calcutta a pretty protest."

This time around, the message that Mitra wants to convey is an outcry against censorship of art. Though abstract, the painting shows two figures clearly engaged in an intimate embrace.

While Jamini Roy 'eyes' and Picasso's breaking of figures, the third influence that Mitra admits to is Frida Kahlo. "Frida, because of her audacity and how playful and dark she can be... From Picasso, there's actually one particular work – The Weeping Woman – that inspires me. It's amazing how someone can break form like that."

Underwater wonder

Another installation used one of the elements of nature to convey a message. Six models clad in white overalls stood before a projector that displayed scenic blue waters flowing, the shadows of which were strewn across their faces and body. With Indian colours and motifs, the print-on-print brand of Ajay Kumar has Indo-western silhouette patterns as well. "Water surrounds us. Fashion tries to be relevant and keep up with current affairs. Our brand wants to convey such issues through our prints," says the owner of the eponymous brand.

"I'm a nature lover and this collection is very close to me. I try not to focus on the negative aspects of issues of this world. Instead of showing polluted waters I'd rather show flowing blue water that inspires people."

Woodland Wonderland

If Kumar looks at the world underwater, Yavi, helmed by Yadvi Agarwal, conceptualises a fantasy world beneath the forest. With roots dangling from the ceiling and models with flowers in their hair and on their faces, Agarwal showcased a line that took inspiration from impressionist painters, especially Monet. "I was really inspired by Paris as a whole when I visited in 2010, and that has stayed with me," explains Agarwal. "I wanted to mix the kind of art created in our own block-printing traditions and revisiting it from an impressionist perspective."

So instead of simply using prints, she sometimes uses smear patterns, often mixing them up with found objects or scraps of fabric to create motifs in her clothes. "I find inspiration in structures in the arrangement of objects – often something as bizarre as a garbage can with things spilling out can inspire me simply because of the way in which it is arranged," she explains, adding that these inspirations have also led to her creating a zero-waste model.