French connection

As the discourse on haute couture peaks with another season behind us, we dive into the archives of a renegade pair of Indo-French designers who first made India a fixture on the hallowed schedule.

-  SHRIYA ZAMINDAR

THE YEAR WAS 1984. Karl Lagerfeld sent out his second couture collection for Chanel. Yves Saint Laurent had become a favourite on the Paris fashion circuit that was notorious for its exclusionary standards. Couture Week, specifically, was a celebration of French savoir-faire. That year, the carefully curated haute couture calendar saw three non-French names on the schedule. Alongside Japanese designer Hanae Mori and Norwegian couturier Per Spook, were Hemant Sagar and Didier Lecoanet, a pair of Indo-French debutants. This was also the first time an Indian name would be seen on the prestigious schedule.

India has long been a resource for fashion houses such as Dior, Chanel and Dries Van Noten, whose teams flock here to produce parts of their collections. And across the ocean, Indian designers have recently become permanent fixtures at Couture Week in Paris.

“When we started our journey, there was nothing like ‘guest designers’ jetting in with their collections,” says Sagar, as we sit down in their shared living room in Gurugram, referring to the practice which began later in 1998 where new luxury brands would be soft-launched. It’s 40 degrees Celsius outside, but inside, the residence is as cool as a Parisian church. Bauhaus influences run in the veins of the space: high ceilings, glass walls and sleek furniture in a combination of pewter and black. Their house, it’s quite clear, is in complete contradiction of the softness of their couture language, which you come to recognise.