At Lakmé Fashion Week x FDCI, Payal Pratap turns denim into a botanical narrative

A tree stood in the middle of the runway at The Atelier, one of the two primary venues for Lakme Fashion Week x FDCI, its roots dripping down from branches to the floor of the runway. Models glided in and out of the dense foliage, dressed in denim—part of designer Payal Pratap’s new collection, ‘Memories Pressed in Time’. The tree too was made of denim dappling the runway in the light and shadow of repurposed fabric patches and connecting Pratap’s hero material with her enduring love for nature.

Nature—botanical motifs, floral embroideries, memories of gardens—is rarely, if ever, absent from Pratap’s practice. Memories of her family garden bloom across collections, conflated with different techniques, cuts and silhouettes. Miranda Priestly may not have found florals groundbreaking, but it is exactly this quality that designers like Pratap celebrate in their works—the longevity of flora and fauna through fleeting seasons and trends.

Little wonder that florals, ferns and palms abounded across the collection. But ‘Memories Pressed in Time’ was hardly an easy exercise for Pratap who has turned out a fully denim focused collection for the first time, working with fabrics from the brand R-Elan. “I’ve used denim in collections before but this was an indepth study,” the designer told OPEN after the show on day two of fashion week. “I researched a lot more because wanted to know what I could do with the textile. How could I treat it differently to create my brand language? What could I offer that would be new?”

For the most part, ‘Memories Pressed in Time’ can take the credit for achieving what Pratap set out to do. It is approximately 15 years since she started retailing clothes as part of her eponymous label, though she has been in fashion for much longer (a National Institute of Fashion Design (NIFT) graduate, Pratap spent earlier years working with Rajesh Pratap Singh, one of India’s most revered designers and her spouse). A thoughtful design vocabulary, honed over years of working behind the scenes, set her apart immediately on launch and has remained steadfast through the years, evolving in terms of materials and silhouettes. Case in point: a denim collection that looks and feels distinctly her while incorporating a new material into her repertoire. Think a denim jacket with silver palm leaves, a cutwork foliage cape, a denim overshirt layered over purple pants or pantsuits layered over checked separates and striped dresses. The collection evokes the look of flowers and botanicals pressed into the fabrics, using techniques ranging from embroidery, crochet and block printing to patchwork, cutwork and appliqué. Pratap’s signature cross-stitch recurs across designs, but what stands out is the cyanotype printing style which gives the motifs a lived in feeling that resonates with denim’s longlasting quality.

For Pratap, shifting the perception of denim as a “great pair” of blue jeans has been a major goal. “Denim is a fashion fabric, and the idea was elevating it as a designer has been exciting for me,” she says. It was also a difficult undertaking—denim may feel easy to wear, but it takes a lot to master the art of making it. “The more you work with denim, the more you learn about it,” Pratap adds, observing that this is a textile that changes constantly during the process of designing. Each wash shifts the colours and more crucially, the sizes. Pratap recalls recutting several pieces after the first wash to account for shrinkage—and then she used it to her advantage. “We used two different weights and shades, so when they were appliquéd and washed, the top layer shrank and created a 3D effect. When it is washed, the raw edges bleed in different ways and different blues.” Pratap is often a quiet designer, letting her work do the speaking for her, but her voice rings with a rare exuberance as she talks about treating denim “in a precious way”. Apart from this expansive study in denim, the collection also marks Pratap’s venture into menswear. Having worked closely with Rajesh Pratap Singh over the years, the category is hardly unfamiliar to her—and she brings her own take on the garments with wearability and understated style in equal measures.

After decades of working in the fashion industry, the designer knows a thing or two about staying inspired and excited, even as trends change in a blink and an industry’s seams keeps growing. “You have to keep revisiting what your strength is as a brand, and what you stand for, what excites you,” she says. “I have tried to get all of that together with denim.”