Crafted from recycled plastics and industrial materials, Amit Aggarwal’s floor-skimming dresses and lehengas at FDCI’s India Couture Week have a future as art. That, he admits post show, was the plan all along. His 66-piece collection, Pedesis, was seeded in pre-pandemic Bali, the lush Island of the Gods known for its basketry, batik and handcrafted jewellery. The Delhi-based designer had brought back two large portraits from that holiday, his “first point of stimuli”. “They are of this African tribal boy. Perhaps because I looked at them every day for the last two years I was subconsciously drawn towards the influence of tribal culture, which came through in this collection, with the colour, body adornments, and the ambiguity of form,” he says.
