The many textures of Rimzim Dadu

She’s recognized in the present day for her steel-wire saris however Rimzim Dadu began her profession with fashions stomping out in mini clothes and lace-up males’s sneakers. That mentioned, she created her personal textiles from day one. And whereas her debut at couture week is only some years outdated, everyone agrees that couture is what she has been doing all alongside.

The contradictions which can be Rimzim Dadu have made her one in every of India’s most fascinating designers. As American novelist Susan Sontag wrote, ‘To call one thing as fascinating implies difficult outdated orders of reward,’ and Dadu is a tiny, unassuming powerhouse whose work, straddling textile innovation, western sensibility, and Indian weaving heritage, has saved me engaged over time. Hers was additionally one of the crucial fascinating reveals of the current Hyundai India Couture Week. Titled Oxynn, she began engaged on it per week after her second daughter was born in February and divulges that she has by no means felt extra weak with a group as a result of each ensemble felt so private.

The gathering took her obsession with the patola a step additional — with a wool and leather-based model of the double ikat weave featured at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum within the Cloth of India exhibition in 2015. “The Lambani tribes of Gujarat actually stood out for the textiles they put on, their craft and jewelry. It was so rooted and conventional, I assumed it might be fascinating to reimagine what futuristic variations of tribal weaves and crafts might appear like,” says Dadu. In a bigger lexicon, the Delhi-based designer’s work is a part of the India Fashionable aesthetic espoused by a handful of designers, together with Amit Aggarwal, Gaurav Gupta, Anand Bhushan, Arjun Saluja, and Kallol Dutta.

India Couture Week reveals have been dominated by lehengas, embroidery, and cancan previously decade. Dadu’s reimagining of Banjara tribal work was removed from that. Oxidised jewelry, mirror work, and tactile craftsmanship have been changed into sculptural corsets, harem pants, and East-meets-West form-fitting lehenga-gown saris. To echo designer Rajesh Pratap Singh (recognized for his fashionable minimalist experimentation with conventional strategies, textile innovation, and unbending originality) who has seen Dadu’s work in photographs, “It seems implausible.”

Bridging prêt and couture

Attention-grabbing, nonetheless, comes with its personal baggage. It’s normally shorthand for area of interest or not within the mainstream. And but, Dadu has breached that chasm. Over the previous few years, her label has turn into a part of the mainstream. What was established along with her metal sari, worn by Sonam Kapoor at Cannes in 2016, gathered steam along with her menswear line in 2019, and accelerated when her model turned 15 in 2022, marked by a present on the Kiran Nadar Museum of Artwork.

Proper after, she debuted at India Couture Week in 2023, opened a standalone menswear retailer in DLF Emporio in Delhi in 2024, and expanded her footprint to Hyderabad in 2025. Multibrand retail is restricted to Pernia’s Pop-Up Store; she additionally does footwear and baggage, and is planning to go worldwide with an growth to West Asia. Her movie star line-up is rising, too, from actors Kareena Kapoor Khan to Janhvi Kapoor, and philanthropist Radhika Service provider Ambani. Ambani’s outing in Dadu’s creation has even sparked that absolute signal of being mainstream — a viral hate reel, extra on which later.

In accordance with Mumbai-based vogue stylist Sohiny Das who has labored on her reveals for the previous 4 years, Dadu has managed a troublesome activity: “Retain what she began with, but in addition evolve it dramatically, bridge prêt and couture, and be capable to do each.” Das factors out that Dadu was very texture-based firstly, however over time has realised the significance of form.

‘I’m actually creating for ladies’

Dadu, 38, now the mom of two women — Ose, three, and Raga, six months — spent her childhood, from the age of 5, at her father’s export home making her personal tie-and-dye patterns, watching embroidery being carried out, and being fascinated by spools of threads and button machines. She began her label, then referred to as My Village, at GenNext, Lakmé Vogue Week 2007, proper after graduating from Pearl Academy in Delhi.

Through the years, she has experimented with paper, wool, silicon, chiffon, metal wires, acrylic with textiles, and leather-based, shredding them to develop cords and weaving these collectively to realize a construction that material wouldn’t permit. None of that is summary experimentation. “I’m not creating to show some extent or for museums. I’m actually creating for ladies, for folks. I actively consider how every bit can match into their wardrobes, and the performance of it is extremely necessary for me,” she says. Her on-line prêt ensembles are within the vary of ₹1-₹3 lakh.

And but, the truth that her work is in museums appears pure. Apurva Kackar, director of KNMA’s Institutional Affairs and Outreach, the place Dadu’s fifteenth anniversary present grew to become the primary bodily showcase of their Artwork x Vogue collection, factors out that the designer’s presentation was alongside an Anupam Sud retrospective on the museum and that each challenged the patriarchal area of printmaking and vogue. “Dadu’s work blurs the boundaries between vogue, artwork, and materials innovation, qualities that resonate strongly with our imaginative and prescient for the Artwork x Vogue collection. She has persistently challenged standard perceptions of textiles and craft, reworking supplies into sculptural varieties,” says Kackar. “This experimental, thought-provoking strategy made her a pure match for our collaboration.”

Difficult controversies

It’s shocking then that Dadu not too long ago discovered herself within the eye of an Instagram storm being accused of copying a Tom Ford gown from his 2020 present for Radhika Service provider Ambani. Dadu, who was forwarded the reel by a bunch of individuals, is fuming. “Fringe clothes have been round for hundreds of years. Tom Ford wasn’t the primary to do one. It’s like saying I’ve copied patola. The primary time I did fringe was in 2014. It was made with chiffon that had been ripped aside and made into cords. We created fringe clothes, tops, and a sari, earlier than Tom Ford. I don’t suppose Tom Ford checked out me and copied it.” She provides, “There are bullies in every single place, and everyone who has an Instagram account now’s a vogue guru, and we should take heed to them.”

Dadu’s annoyance is straightforward to know given her years of experimentation. Designer and buddy of 20 years, Anand Bhushan, who recollects bonding over design, meals, and a shared panic at assembly present deadlines — he has flown with Dadu’s clothes from Delhi to Mumbai simply in time for her present — believes that what units her aside is her constant innovation. “A variety of designers lose that sense of originality, their have to innovate each season, to get significantly enthusiastic about their work. I’ve seen Rimzim from the time she was a child partying each evening and going to work within the mornings to turning into a mom of two lovely daughters and managing a whole enterprise, and innovating… it’s lovely.”

The writer is a photographer and author.

Revealed – September 06, 2025 07:17 am IST