Considered one of Manish Arora’s most sentimental clothes might shock you. Alongside all of the designer’s glittering more-is-more maximalist robes coated in baroque-like gilding and a paradise of hand-embellishment is a straightforward fuschia button-down shirt. Stamped with small however mighty silver metallic florals–it debuted at one among his first collections within the late Nineties and was owned by one among his late nice mates, Catherine Levy, who at all times joked that she’d someday give the shirt to a museum. And so, her want turned actuality when the exhibition Manish Arora: Life Is Beautiful opened at SCAD FASH Museum of Vogue + Movie in Atlanta this week. It’s the primary main retrospective for the designer–and one of many uncommon few solo style exhibitions devoted to an Indian style legend who’s work, in his personal phrases, “may solely be designed by an Indian designer.”
Identified for his iconic statements like “pink and gold are my faith,” Arora has been creating wearable maximalist fantasies for the reason that late Nineties. Suppose: colorfully textured items layered with references as remote as Burning Man to the trance dance events of Goa. It’s excessive, decadent and opulent; it is further. Starting within the early 2000s, Arora turned one of many first main Indian designers to indicate at London Vogue Week and Paris Vogue Week–additionally taking over a brief stint as artistic director of Paco Rabanne within the early 2010s. His affect is extensive–dressing the likes of Katy Perry, Girl Gaga, Nicki Minaj and extra–and standing in as one of the vital excessive and over-the-top designers in Paris for years.
Together with Rafael Gomes, director of style exhibitions at SCAD FASH, Arora painstakingly contacted his greatest collectors and purchasers all through the years to safe items for the present. “It was enjoyable to get in contact with folks I haven’t spoken to for 15 years,” Arora tells Vogue. “Lots of people have been very enthusiastic, lots of people weren’t positive, however in the long run, I believe we did very nicely.”
Colin Douglas Grey
Sitting inside SCAD’s museum on a cool Atlanta afternoon—his nails painted gold, his fingers stacked with fistfuls of glimmering gold rings, his outfit barely metallic and layered with tailoring—he explains that many of the items within the present are, in actual fact, one-of-a-kind. “A few of these items, I did not even personal,” he says. “I didn’t accumulate my archives so we acquired collectively and acquired in contact with folks and acquired them. These items are like nothing that you’ll ever discover anyplace else.” One instance? A Paris-themed rainbow skirt depicting the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and the Moulin Rouge’s well-known Can-Can dance in motion, amongst different landmarks. It’s chain stitched by hand–approximating hours and hours and hours of labor, akin to couture-level style. “It’s typical cliche Paris, however it’s one among my favourite items,” he says. “It was unimaginable to breed, so there’s just one.”
Contained in the exhibition, a feast for the eyes manifests within the type of completely different dream-like eventualities. There’s a dessert-themed wall anchored by crystal-covered ice cream cones and cupcakes, and a fantasy part, flanked with imagery of pastel skies and floating cloth castles. The present is split into 13 themes that greatest characterize the designer’s physique of labor. There’s additionally a uncommon glimpse into his legendary jewellery items–which play with concepts of conventional ceremonial costume and whimsy (pineapples, gingerbread homes and unicorns abound). On the partitions, there are archive and childhood pictures of Arora himself with hand-written notes: “My first time in drag,” one reads. A purse formed like a milkshake, a Swarovski crystal costume rendered of jigsaw puzzle items and a floor-length robe full with a prepare and composed solely out of leather-like butterflies. There’s a lot to see.
