When Vivienne Westwood Met Khadi

The British brand's take on the freedom fabric proved what global brands should not do in India

- Pooja Singh

It wasn't an April Fool's Day joke after all. As soon as the invite to Vivienne Westwood's April 1 show in Mumbai landed as a WhatsApp text, many thought it was a prank. It was going to be the first-ever India show by the British brand, which doesn't have a store in the country as yet. It was going to be a collection with Khadi as a highlight—experimentations with one Indian fabric on a global stage are unheard of. It was going to be traditional meets ready-to-wear meets couture meets punk, an extraordinary marriage the fashion world hadn't seen in years.

It was all of this minus the extraordinary-ness. On Tuesday, while hundreds of attendees sat through an hour of summer heat and rain, with the front-row occupied by celebrities like Kareena Kapoor Khan and Janhvi Kapoor, over 60 looks were presented on a 166ft long runway with a scaffolding-clad Gateway of India as the backdrop. Creative head Andreas Kronthaler had stitched Khadi cotton, handwoven Chanderi silk, raw silk, and Muga silk and wool into flowing dresses, power-shouldered coats, puff-sleeved kurtas and ghagras accentuated with Victorian era-esque hoop skirts. All ideas that celebrated the fluidity of Indian textiles and the late Westwood's love for history and punk gestures, but only on paper. The delivery was mediocre.