Rahul Mishra’s first haute couture show, and Macgraw launches bushfire fundraiser T-shirt

Rahul Mishra’s first show on the official haute couture schedule in Paris, and Macgraw charity T-shirt launches online.

With Paris haute couture week’s ruffles sashaying into the distance, we now have a moment’s respite until the autumn 2020 ready-to-wear shows kick off … next week. Along with all the usual names on last week’s couture calendar were two newcomers offering not only exquisite designs but also an increase in diversity. India’s Rahul Mishra and Cameroonian Imane Ayissi became the first Indian and African designers invited to show on the official schedule as guest members of the Federation de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the governing body of French fashion.

A Rahul Mishra creation. Picture: AFP

In July last year, Buzz went to see an off-schedule showing by Mishra in Paris and he spoke of his desire for such an honour while walking and talking through his collection, which showed his love of the natural world being increasingly encroached upon by urban landscapes.

“When I won the Woolmark Prize I was knocking on the door for the ready-to-wear calendar,” he said at the time. “Now it’s all about the couture.” The 2014 winner of the International Woolmark Prize for womenswear, Mishra is a self-confessed “storyteller” who has long advocated a sustainable approach to fashion, to slow fashion. He now works with 1600 craftspeople, at his base in Delhi and across rural India, who create his intricately embroidered pieces.

Following his Paris catwalk show last week, he told reporters his selection for the calendar felt “amazing and very surreal”. His desire for sustainable production is pushed further thanks to his four-year-old daughter, Aarna, and the increasing pollution
in his home country that often makes playing outside an impossibility. “I am very emotional about it,” Mishra says. “Sometimes it makes me cry.
All our children should be growing up in a better world. When I take Aarna to the foothills of the Himalayas and the sky turns blue, she is so happy.”

He says that for this spring 2020 collection, he imagined a “pure virginal and untamed planet … with ecosystems crafted out of embroidered flora and fauna”. Dresses and bodices in single shades resemble clusters of fern fronds, while more colourful embroideries depict idyllic scenes filled with flamingoes, flowers, hummingbirds hovering above necklines and those blue skies — something the designer’s future looks full of at any rate.

As previously reported in this column, the fashion industry, along with so many others, has chipped in to help raise funds during the ongoing bushfire crisis, whether to support the volunteer fire services, those directly affected by the disaster or animal welfare charities.

Macgraw Year SOS T-shirt.

Macgraw founders and sisters Beth and Tessa Macgraw are among those doing what they can, and have launched their “Year SOS” T-shirt featuring a crying koala graphic designed by Tessa. The sisters floated the graphic on Instagram to gauge interest and “we had sold $8000 worth of tees before we even knew who was making them”, Beth tells Buzz. “I think like everyone, we felt really helpless watching the terrifying footage of the bushfires and the toll it was taking on communities and wildlife. We felt guilty sitting in a beach house safely enjoying our Christmas break and felt compelled to do what we could.”

The organic cotton tees, designed and made in Australia, are online ($95, macgraw.com) and the sisters are hoping to double the amount already raised. All profits will be split between the NSW Rural Fire Service, WIRES Wildlife Rescue and the Country Women’s Association Disaster Relief.