Rohit Gandhi + Rahul Khanna present Astride at the Deccan Derby 2025

On October 6, the Hyderabad Race Membership turned the setting for a unique sort of spectacle. As a part of the Deccan Derby 2025, Delhi-based designer duo Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna offered their new couture assortment, Astride, in affiliation with the Race2Win Basis, a charitable belief based mostly in Hyderabad, devoted to selling horse racing in India. Conceived as an unique showcase titled Style in its Purest Type, the night drew from the class and precision of the derby, translating its power into style.

Rohit Gandhi, Rahul Khanna with Malaika Arora
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Particular association

“Our imaginative and prescient was to create a night of pure style as a celebration after the races,” says Rahul Khanna. “Hyderabad has all the time welcomed us warmly, and this showcase allowed us to carry our world right here in a approach that connects class, tradition, and the spirit of the derby.”

The gathering explored concepts of motion, management, and attract. Materials comparable to metallic silks, satins and velvets mirrored the gleam of race-night lights, whereas sculpted tailoring and fluid drapes steered movement even in stillness. The palette — wealthy in blacks, silvers and jewel tones — lent the gathering an understated, nocturnal high quality.

“For us, Astride was about channelling the power of racing — that sense of pace, management and anticipation — into couture,” says Rohit Gandhi. “Each garment carries a way of momentum, whether or not it’s in a sharply reduce jacket or the motion of a drape.”

The night’s theme, Style in its Purest Type, introduced the main target again to craftsmanship and development. “It was about stripping away the performative facet and returning to the necessities — the reduce, the shape, and the element,” explains Rahul. “The derby, very similar to couture, values self-discipline and precision, and we wished that parallel to return via.”

Construction, restraint and a way of ease

Malaika Arora walked the runway in a glance from the gathering that mirrored the designers’ concentrate on construction and ease. Her look added a measured presence to the showcase with out taking away from the gathering’s quiet tone.

For the duo, the steadiness between management and sensuality stays central to their work. “We like that stress — when one thing is exactly tailor-made however nonetheless fluid,” says Rohit.

Malaika Arora

Hyderabad, they added, has a selected understanding of that strategy. “Town has a really refined relationship with luxurious,” says Rahul. “Individuals right here admire craftsmanship and the story behind a garment as a lot as its visible attraction.”

Astride, the designers say, continues their ongoing exploration of construction, gentle, and texture. “It’s each a refinement and a continuation of what we’ve all the time achieved,” says Rohit. “We’re extra focussed now on creating experiences that really feel private, thought-about, and exact.”

Because the night concluded, Astride felt much less like a present of spectacle and extra like a quiet examine in motion — style pared again to its necessities.