Beyond chimeric garments, couture is a numbers game for New Delhi-based designer Rahul Mishra. “This year, I’ve grown my business by 60 per cent, but I’ve reduced my production by 10 per cent,” he tells Vogue, in his makeshift studio in Paris’s fashionable 10th arrondissement.
“Haute couture feels like the future for us. If a piece of clothing can create 3,000 to 4,000 hours [of work] for someone [around the length of time it takes to embroider one of his gowns] it becomes far more powerful and beautiful.”
Another significant number for the designer is one. On Thursday, Mishra made his debut on the Paris Haute Couture Week schedule – the first Indian designer to do so – as a guest member.
This is the most recent in a succession of firsts over the 40-year-old’s career to date. After initially graduating in physics, Mishra went on to do a post-grad in design at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad – his final collection won him a scholarship to Istituto Marangoni, making him the first non-European to receive one.
Then, in 2014, he became the first Indian designer to win the Woolmark Prize – joining notable recipients like Karl Lagerfeld, Giorgio Armani and Yves Saint Laurent.
That same year, his work was featured in an exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and he was invited by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM) to show at Paris Fashion Week as part of the spring/summer 2015 season. He’s been a regular fixture on the French capital’s schedules ever since.