While we had already told you about Rohit Bal’s patented designs before his big couture night, the showing itself threw up his signature rooster and the Nandi bull, emblazoned prominently, embroidered subtly or thrown in causally. To drive home the point, he got actor Arjun Rampal, FDCI president Sunil Sethi, fellow designer Raghuvendra Rathod to do some heavy duty pitching. Yes they walked the ramp as did some of his women friends like Kalyani Chawla and Shalini Passi.
But the Bal show stood out for the intricacy of detailing and its remarkably well-balanced combinations and pairings than anything else. Yes, he is known for his fluid silhouettes and yardage but being the original artiste that he is, we expected some variation there from his earlier seasons. We loved the pristine white collection with a string of mother of pearl buttons and crepe ruffled skirt breaking the fluidity of a sweeping silhouette. Embossed and embroidered white on white made for a delicate and creamy statement. We also loved how he paired white with the coloured boleros in zardozi.
Point to note was the pairing of zigzag-striped dhoti pants in muted green, ochre and earth-red for men with a velvet black jacket done up in zardozi motifs and encrusted with green and red embellishments and crystals. The intricacy stretched to reverse panels and the borders of the underpinnings of the voluminous gowns. And the almost pluckable flowers embedded in the trails or the long-slit sleeves. This was about craftsmanship that was reined in and not gushy.