Vaishali S on Handloom, PFW Debut, and 25 Years of Craft

Mumbai recently witnessed a landmark moment in Indian haute couture as Vaishali S’ Handloom Couture Odyssey marked 25 years of a designer who has never separated fashion from life, or craft from the living energy of nature.

The evening opened with a deeply personal philosophy that has long guided her work “Aadha angan, aadha ghar.” A reminder that design, like life, must live half indoors and half outdoors in reverence and not dominance.

For Vaishali S, sustainability has never been trend led or performative. It has simply been instinct. (What you do unknowingly becomes sustainable.) What was impressive for me was that it wasn’t trying to be virtuous. It was simply natural. Like breathing. Like weaving. Like staying loyal to an idea until it becomes a belief system. There’s something dangerous about a designer this sure of herself.

From refusing to touch trees after 6:30/ sunset (as her mother ridiculed her) to designing with belief, her universe exists in a quiet alignment with nature. Waste from her factory, she has often said, does not ever travel to landfills. It finds purpose. It returns into systems. Nothing is discarded thoughtlessly.

Against the floodlit grandeur of the Asiatic Library, guests were led through an immersive Art Walk, a descent into the oceanic world that inspired this landmark moment. Garments that had braved the depths of the Andaman Sea stood intact, transformed from couture into coral like forms, bearing witness to a rare truth. Craft does not weaken in nature. It strengthens.

At the heart of the evening was khadi and handloom, not as nostalgia but as future facing luxury. It was a fitting tribute to India’s textile inheritance and a declaration that global menswear too can be born from Indian soil.

The night also reflected a quiet alliance between cultures of Italy and India, two nations with a reverence for form, fabric and philosophy. The show was where Italian precision met Indian lineage. Where technique met temperament.

This was not couture borrowed from the past. This was heritage translated for the world.

How Vaishali S Took Indian Couture Underwater

When we asked her if she ever imagined Indian handloom making it to Paris Couture Week, she smiled and traced the journey back to its simplest beginnings. “I decided this 25 years ago when I saw weavers working on the loom. I felt, this is such a beautiful thing, the world should see.” That vision now lives far beyond India. “I have a store in Paris now. For any Indian designer, that is huge. Our flag is already there, with handloom.” But the sea, she says, changed everything.

“My first diving experience changed me. I went underwater without knowing how to swim properly… and I was lost in the beauty of the ocean.” That memory stayed. And then it transformed. “For almost five years now, I’ve been creating coral reefs and ocean structures in my work.” Then came the ultimate test: not from fashion critics, but from nature itself. “My partner took my clothes 30 metres underwater. We did it at least fifteen times. Nothing happened to the garments. That’s why you see the photographs and the real clothes together here. Even now, I’m amazed. It felt like I was part of the ocean itself. The fish, the shrimp, the corals, it felt like the clothes became part of the universe.”

When asked about the single biggest myth she has spent years breaking about handloom, her answer is immediate. “People think handloom is fragile. That it’s not fashionable. This artwork proves it is the strongest fabric: and the most fashionable.”

And then she adds, almost defiantly, “India is the most fashionable country in the world. Every village has its own fabric, colour language, and identity. We should appreciate what we already have.”

This year also marks her debut in menswear, an evolution she describes not as a departure, but an extension. “You’ll see Indian roots and a modern version of menswear.”

When asked about her dream muse, Vaishali shares that she doesn’t hesitate toward glamour, but grounds it in grace. “Someone who appreciates nature and humility. Maybe Deepika Padukone.”

What lingered long after the evening ended was not a silhouette, a bandhgala, or a hemline; but a sensibility. In a world obsessed with immediacy, she works in decades. In a culture addicted to reinvention, she chooses continuity.

On celebrating 25 years at Mumbai’s Asiatic Library, Vaishali shares, “I knew this was the place. This building, this history, this is the only right way to celebrate 25 years.”

With Beneath The Surface, Vaishali S staged a conversation between craft and current, ancestry and ambition. She proved that couture can honour the earth as much as it honours craft. If fashion had a conscience, it would look like this.

Clearly, the designer isn’t looking backward with her 25 year mark, she’s looking 30 metres underwater!

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