Celebrating life with couture

The first day of the coveted Lakme Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2020 ended on an extravagant note with veteran fashion designer Manish Arora’s collection We Are Family that celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community. With the Parisian cabaret setting, the collection celebrated ‘Life is Beautiful’ with eight models showcasing gowns, leggings, prints, outlandish headgear, and dramatic footwear.

“We are Family is a celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community, saluting the spirit of a tribe that redefines their destiny by daring to defend their dream. It is a collection that fuels their passion and provides a passage for their creativity in an explosion of colour,” says the 47-year-old who returned to LFW after a long hiatus. “It’s always a pleasure to come back to Mumbai and especially, at LFW to showcase my work,” he adds.

With hues of bright neon pinks, greens, yellows, and blues dominating the show, the fashion designer put forth a stark contrast of transparent and opaque fabrics as a basis of his vision. His silhouettes being a fusion of streetwear were edgy but with hints of haute couture.

“This showcase is very dear to me as it’s a curation of my best pieces over the years. Every garment depicts a different sense of story and feel. It’s a curation that I have handpicked to celebrate genders across the spectrum with the underlying message to be united in our differences,” says Arora who is a known name at Paris Fashion Week.

Moreover, for the fashion designer his show was not just the celebration of the community that he is proud and passionate about, but also of the stage called life. “I am extremely pleased to see my vision being so perfectly executed in a larger than life depiction of colour, boldness and of course fashion. From the models to the clothes, they represent the strength, force, and glamour of the community,” he concludes.