Ashish (Q2720)
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Ashish is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Ashish |
Ashish is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
2001
fashion designer
There’s so much to British creativity. Ashish Gupta entrusted the art direction of this look book to former Fashion East-ers James Theseus Buck and Luke Brooks of Rottingdean Bazaar, along with photographer Annie Collinge. This is the same trio that won this year’s Grammy for best recording package.Gupta explained that after enduring some gut-wrenching business turbulence following the demise of Matches Fashion, he decided to leave London for India, where his family and factories are based, and cloister himself in design. “It was very therapeutic, actually,” he said. “Because making the clothes is the best part of this for me. And the workshop in India was like an ideas lab: We tried something new every day.”Revived, he returned to England with this collection: “And trying all these new techniques made me think of the power of audacity, experimentation, and lightness. These are the same attributes that I think you need to survive as an independent in this industry, especially in the UK right now. So that’s why I wanted some lightness in this shoot.” Hence his commission.That lightness absolutely carried over into a humorous and subversively self-interrogating lookbook that ingeniously centered around a mannequin the artists had bought on eBay. They said: “We thought about the most functional aspects and purposes of lookbooks and how we could experiment with and emphasize those.” With their trademark mordant wit they placed their obviously lifeless model in locales that served to ingeniously and incongruously mirror Gupta’s gorgeous garments. The resulting images were full of gags: some of these were obvious, others more nuanced.So a look shot against a colorfully lumpy Brighton climbing wall was patched with irregularly shaped scraps and swatches of hand-embroidered fabric sourced from Gupta’s own development archive: these scraps included grails he’d made when he was starting out 20 years ago. A long organza dress was embroidered with sequined flowers that became progressively droopier and more wilted across the garment; this looked as if Collinge had shot it on the appropriately overgrown grassy shoulder of a highway. Memories of struggling to complete a polka-dot project under the tutelage of swear-y legend Professor Louise Wilson had inspired Gupta to make the bias-cut chiffon T-shirt dress whose dots were all hand-drawn on the garment before being filled with sequins. This was shot against a spotted wall.
“I wanted to embrace the imperfection of the process in order to showcase the analog reality of the handicraft,” he said. Enhanced by its endearingly eccentric presentation—this was all analog reality, no Photoshop—Gupta’s wit, determination, and skill was writ large in this excellent collection. If you get it, you get it.
29 September 2024
Politics. Wars. Brexit. Economics. Family stuff. Non-paying retailers. Last time we chatted, Ashish Gupta was gripped by a glumness sparked by circumstance. So for the new season this usually sunny soul decided to regroup. He decided to pay fresh attention to London, seek fresh stimulation in a new category (knitwear), and to lean on some old friends. The result was a collection in which joy, anger and humor were interwoven, and that was shot in spots on the streets of London to which he has a deep connection.He said: “London’s been home for most of my life but I was starting to feel disillusioned with it: and if you stop enjoying something it soon becomes awful. And there was a parallel with the administrative minutiae of running my business, which for various reasons including the effects of Brexit and others which I can’t go into here has also become a slog. So this collection is about finding an antidote to that by leaning into community, place, and the joy of the work.”It was an approach epitomized by the ‘In Pursuit Of Magic’ sweater, shot on Hackney Road and worn over a ruffle tulle dress by Nisha Bhatt, a former Ashish intern who is currently studying at Central Saint Martins. This and other knitwear pieces were developed in consultation with New York based Shradha Kochhar (another former intern): together she and Ashish made a collection that referenced heritage techniques and patterns while upending them with detail.Theo (surname unknown), an art historian friend, wore the sequin and studs ‘Angry Homosexual’ biker one recent Friday night on Old Compton Street—plus ça change—and Princess Julia modeled a bias cut sequin kind-of buffalo check outside London’s most reliably romantic restaurant, Andrew Edmunds. That classic adman/publishing/hybebeast boozer the Sun and 13 Cantons—still serving eye-wateringly priced Staropramen after all these years—served as backdrop to a shot of Jaime Winstone, actor, wearing a sequin tartan suit alongside her dog Donnie Disco. Many of the other photographs were taken in places significant to Gupta, including outside a block of flats where he once couchsurfed as a newcomer to the city and just across from a Mayfair shop where he once earned a crust altering pants.Both making this collection and going out on the street with old friends to shoot it, said Gupta: “made me realize that what I thought I’d lost was still there: I’d just stopped looking for it.
” For those keen to wear garments that encompass both extravagant surface and genuine depth this excellent designer remains a go-to.
29 February 2024
“I want it to be an absolute blast of sex-positive, body-positive, joyful celebration—ofeveryone. That was the brief, really. I was like, ‘Don’t be shy,enjoyit. Feel the joy, feel the moment.’” So said Ashish of his preshow pep talk before his first runway run out in four long, barren Ashish-less years. The models, drawn from a mix of agencies and open casting, nailed that brief to help deliver a show that was among the most fun and uplifting of this London season.“Everybody Is a Star” read the lettering on the wall of the Nobu Hotel’s ballroom. Alongside it was a large crescent-moon prop, upon which perched a beautiful Ashish night nymph in long, dark, sparkling robes. Below her in a swan-headboard bed slept a handsome mustached man, who occasionally tossed and turned, allowing showgoers to glimpse his glinting scanty sleepwear.The first model prowled out in the collection’s namesake piece, a fluid chiffon gown embedded with glass-bead embroidery. Jem Stevens, toting a pair of pineapples in Look 4, wore a dress that combined the designer’s core sequins with a liquid-knit technique. Look 6’s couple were clad in collage pieces assembled by Ashish from swatches and scraps his team in India produced during the development of this collection, crafted similarly to the quote-unquote jeans worn by Herbie Mensah in Look 13. “No-one Likes Us” and “And We Don’t Care” read the back of the two sequined bikers worn by the pair in Look 19.In both Look 9’s florals and Look 30’s tiger stripe, Michele Ronson delivered a powerful and Pat Cleveland–esque interpretative walk. First-time model Rittika, who walked into Ashish’s open casting just minutes after he’d declared his hope of finding an Indian beauty to wear the show’s closing sari, was everything he’d manifested. Look 32’s model remained anonymous in his crochet sequined balaclava and tiger-stripe jockstrap. Linder Sterling, the first artist to wear a meat dress and Ashish’s recent collaborator, both modeled (floral pajamas) and helped propel the thought process behind the designer’s dream sequin sequence. With that be-yourself blessing from the designer, the models were free to let their personalities shine; Ashish’s glinting kaleidoscope craft amplified them still further. This was a show for everyone.
18 September 2023
Ashish Gupta reported that this collection was partially inspired by his memories of waiting, back in his Central Saint Martins days, to show his Indian passport to the British border officers at immigration. He said: “There were always some fabulously dressed people in the immigration queue. I remember seeing couples who were coming on their honeymoon. And the brides would be very dressed up, with hair and makeup, and that wardrobe that is such a fascinating mix of East and West: maybe a big winter coat over a very ornate sari. Or a salwar pant beneath a cardigan.”Ironically enough this collection had its own immigration moment: French customs insisted on inspecting every piece on its way back from Ashish’s Paris showroom (more quote-unquote frictionless post-Brexit reality). And by visualizing that no-man’s-land point of transition between his birth culture and his British culture, Ashish tapped once again into the dynamic that runs so deeply in his work.That bicultural mixture of codes was expressed deeply Ashish-ly by contrasting pieces from both sides made from a trove of vintage saris, beautifully ornate, with other pieces fashioned in his own sequin-strewn dialect. Comfort pieces originating from Selbu, Norway—Nordic snowflake knits, pajama suits, and robes—were given his proprietarily unmistakable twinkling zhuzh. Sequins were also placed to gently recontextualize madras check in a tartan context on supercool basketball shorts and a finely draped cowl-neck backless top. The upcycled saris looked especially wonderful in slouchy bombers with customized multicolored ribbed cuffs.The uptown inspiration of the bouclé-ish check jacket-and-midi-dress look, plus its cousins, was self-evident. Set in sequin rather than wool, Ashish’s intervention gave the stalwart Parisian ensemble an anti-bourgeois, progressive twist. Sequin-defined leopard-print pieces and grungy knit-seeming stripes inserted more signifying layers into a mix that was blended with great precision and craft until all apparent difference was transformed into a fresh manifestation of border-transcending worn harmony.
15 March 2023
He’s been in the business for more than 20 years and employs around 50 craftspeople in his homeland to realize his intricately impactful womenswear. And yet until this season Ashish Gupta, who has long been himself based in London, had never before shot a collection back in India. The reason for this change might have been deeply unfortunate (a close relative suddenly fell very ill while Ashish was visiting), but the results are inspired.After identifying a handily talented locally based photographer, Ashish Shah, the designer repaired with his crew and collection to the faded colonial grandeur of a hunting lodge around three hour’s drive from Delhi. This milieu freed Ashish to channel many of the 100% Indian subtexts in his subconscious that might normally be diluted by an English setting. As we chatted at the kitchen table of his place in London (to where he has now returned, relative partially recovered) he identified as inspirations the 1980s Masala films and contemporaneous Indian movie magazines, Indian-made jujubes, monsoons, the velour bedspreads favored by his family in the 1970s, the tulip-field scene in Silsila, and the 2000-ish BC dancing girl sculpture excavated from Mohenjo-daro in the Indus valley.Almost accidentally then, this collection was a second-season evolution of fall 2022’s look at the adaptation of Euro-centric modes of dress in India: a post-colonial, post-globalization, and for sure post-modern scattering of sequins in search of fresh patterns. Madras check, geeky knit tank tops, flannel shirting, and hand-drawn florals were all elevated to siren status through their transformation into sequin—Ashish was stretching the conventions of fabrication way before Bottega. From India to England and now back again, the latest chapter in the Ashish story held a twist that expanded its entire narrative—and contained clothing that looked transportingly wearable, wherever you wished to go. Ashish’s unplanned presence in India proved a sequin-writ exception to Salman Rushdie’s edict in Midnight’s Children: “most of what matters in our lives takes place in our absence.”
14 October 2022
For 20 years Ashish Gupta has shaped futureproof wearables that are highly compatible with pleasure. And by developing his pieces in sequins via Indian handcraft rather than pixels via code, these garments command real-life attention on multiple levels.As this new logistics- and COVID-delayed collection amply showcased, one core skill set in the Ashish portfolio is cutting what appears uncomplicatedly oomphy womenswear. Yet were it was so simple then everyone would do it: those Halston-reminiscent bias cut slip and halter dresses, the Edith Head–evocative goddess gown shot by the fireplace, and the vaguely-Valentino ruffle mini are as exacting to craft as they are apparently enchanting to wear. Sprinkled around these conventionally glamorous shapes worn unconventionally were denim, separates, and swimwear, plus a powerful fringe bomber jacket that lent this collection enough versatility be worn anywhere from evening reception to all-night rave.With Ashish, the real decoding lies in the pattern. This season he went back to one of his most enduring inspirations, the intersection of modes of dress he observed on the street in Delhi before he set off for London and Central Saint Martins. “In winter you will see Indian ladies in their silk saris, and then putting over a little Fair Isle cardigan—saris meet Scotland.”This became the launchpad for a seasonal in-sequin-remix of ikats, stripes, argyles, and houndstooth (some cherry-strewn) that spoke directly to the spirit of cross-cultural relish that is central to Ashish. That fireplace dress was cut to evoke the sari as much as it was to conjure mid-century glamour. A sequin cricket jumper spoke of another shared language, and a Chanel-template jacket and mini dress were emphatically anti-monochromatic. While Ashish talked about these elements “clashing together,” that clashing was anything but antagonistic; instead it proved the source for some sparklingly fresh and fun fashion harmonies.
6 April 2022
It will be wonderful when Ashish Gupta returns to showing his collections on a runway. However it has also been a wonderful privilege over the last few seasons to meet this most non-fungible of London designers in his Queens Park kitchen to go through the rail together over a nice cup of tea.This time round the first dress he pulled, a huge skirted tulle gown embroidered with tinsel-edged doodled florals, was lighter than the hanger that held it. The next piece, a bead fringed minidress in dégradé shades of silver to bronze, was so materially substantial it required two hangers to be held. When he pulled out another—a full-sleeeved long-skirted dress covered with sequins meticulously sewn to transmit a rainbow of rough, Haring-esque zig-zags to the eye—Gupta was just as interested in how the garment sounded as how it looked. Shaking it to generate the frisky rattle of massed sequins in motion: “I love the way it sounds. With clothes we think about color and surface and form, but we never really think about sound,” he said.Those zig-zags, flowers, and some vaguely witchy horoscopy stars and moons were all indeed doodles, purposefully sketchy, whose imperfection Gupta said was intended to showcase the meticulous perfection in the dresses’ manufacture. Fleshing out his flowers with petals of silk georgette or tufted yarn fringing turned the visible volume up to 11 while keeping the wearable weight negligible. The artisanship of his colleagues in India translated handsomely to doodle-etched denim and tracksuits that also rattled playfully while emitting undulating eyescapes of sparkle and glint. Whether to watch, to wear, or to listen to this was choice Ashish.
20 October 2021
Eureka! Here’s the solution to fashion’s lugubrious sweatpant-anoia: Simply offer garments that enable the consolatory comfort that we’ve grown fond of in isolation,combinedwith the communal joyfulness we’re aching to emanate. This collection by Ashish Gupta fabulously demonstrates that comfort and joy can be mutually inclusive and mutually enhancing (who would think the opposite?) even if it was uncomfortable at times to make. Travel restrictions meant this master sequin sequencer had to oversee his coding digitally, removed from his staff (and family) in India, which was a creative and emotional downer. “I’ve always been traditionally very analogue,” he said. And the effect of Brexit upon shipping costs and logistics—long story, and none of it fun—has delayed the completion of this collection by weeks.But let’s shake off those woes to consider the clothes. When he was a student at Central Saint Martins, Gupta said he picked up this excellent line: “An evening gown should feel as comfortable as a T-shirt, and a T-shirt should feel as special as an evening gown.” And while he can’t recall where the line came from, he explained, “I’ve always carried it with me. So I always design my clothes to not be physically restrictive in any way. Even things that look body-con are cut on the bias and are super soft. Everything has pockets and zips, and there is never any corsetry; I think you should wear clothes you can slip out of very quickly and easily.”Shot in glamorous Finchley here in London, and impressively intricate to consider on the rail in Gupta’s house, this specific collection also seemed deeply easy to quickly get into, both as wearer and watcher. Gupta said the formula of its creation was to consider patterns and visible textures that have, through their history, the power to generate positive and comforting associations—“Like when I think of tie-dye, I always think of beaches and holidays”—and then go to town on them via the sequin sequencer. The joyful result is the product of intense labor: a tie-dye long sleeve, for instance, took two Ashish employees two weeks to embroider by hand, once the exact order of sequins had been drawn and sorted.This collection also ran riotous gamut across the spectrum of so-called formalwear and so-called casualwear, two other categories whose perceived opposition seems increasingly anachronistic and redundant.
Happily enhanced by these fantastic Sam McKnight wigs, this was a collection in which every piece of every look was made to enable joy and comfort in most conceivable circumstances, bar perhaps a funeral. If these ’20s really are going to roar, Ashish is bringing the noise.
24 March 2021
While it was sad that the reliably refreshing energy of Ashish’s runway show was unforthcoming this season, Uber-biking over to his West London home for a chat through this collection proved a pretty good alternative—certainly way better than Zooming. Once milk-choices were clarified and coffee kindly served, the designer lamented that this year, for the first time since 2001, he was unable to spend his usual stint in India, working with his partner factory and 70 employees to refine his collection in person. Instead he was consigned by his asthma and medical advice to stay indoors and oversee it from the kitchen table we were sitting at. “And when your family is 5,000 miles away and you’re worried about them, well, it can feel pretty horrible and worrying.”This enforced distance gave Ashish the unwanted feeling that he was being obliged to design-by-numbers, rather than with the precise, hands-on meticulousness to which he is habituated. This made him think of “touch tapestry,” or “touch ‘n’ tuck,” the old school stitch by numbers home hobby, and proved his starting point. As he said: “I know there’s something kitsch about it, but also I think there is so much beauty in kitsch.”The tapestry hoodies and dresses you see here—some overlaid with incongruously fatalist and sometimes satanist (ironically!) slogans— proved the starting beat of a collection that was produced in a series of “creative blips.” These included a stripe blip that produced tunics and dresses of striking beauty, and a “sexy dress blip” that delivered exactly what Ashish claimed it would. Because life at that point seemed episodic—hopeful one week, hopeless the next—he leaned into an episodic approach to design. “So one day I thought, I’m just going to do beautiful flowers, and another I’m going to do something really emo…I realized that I have been doing this for so many years now that the best thing was probably to just trust my judgment and move ahead; it’s that thing of acceptance.”Acceptance led to unconsciously expressed instincts, including homesickness. The knockout “Swanscape” dress was produced, Ashish said, when he was particularly pining for India. Only after its creation did he realize its kinship to the traditional renderings of Goddess Lakshmi and her swan companions (some of which hang in his hallway).
The cheesy cats—consciously pixelated to reflect early video games as well as the naturally degraded resolution of images rendered in sequin—and faithful looking hound images were further explorations in the familiar, reassuring, and kitsch.Acceptance goes only so far, and what Ashish was thankful not to have had to accept is the burden of letting any of those 70 employees go: “That’s the thing we’ve achieved in 2020 of which I am most proud.” Especially in the latter stages of the year, his wilder party dresses have performed consistently at retail, with the suggestion being that if you were ever curious about the effect of wearing one of these extraordinary, pleasure-giving pieces the time to yield to that instinct is now. Because you never know when life’s kitsch tapestry will unravel.
14 October 2020
Shortly after Billy Porter wafted backstage in a marvelous magenta Ashish sequined gown—and made the whole room scream—the designer observed: “People who wear my clothes always say to me, ‘My God, that made me so happy. Everybody said I looked amazing.’” We were close to the conclusion of a chat in which Ashish had said that, after a period of block about the direction and nature of this collection, he’d seen the light and determined to focus upon what makes him happy, which is making clothes that bring his customers pleasure. “And I also wanted to be totally unpretentious about it: just beautiful clothes to spread joy.”A powerful dose of wearable antidepressants sounds like just the tonic for troubling times. Here Ashish administered a lifetime’s supply of serotonin boosters all worn below an outrageous array of marabou wigs, pleated topknot towers, and fiercely straightened princess cuts heavily inspired bySweet Charity(hat tip to Sam McKnight for the hair tip). Ashish is a sequinist, and although there was a paillette diversion here he mostly stuck to what he loved. Through it he articulated leopard dots, polka dots, gingham, zebra stripes, Lady Miss Kier swirls, a floral arrangement (worn by an older street-cast model named Fern, who was great), jungle greens (in a dress worn well by regular Ashish model Richie Shazam), and more, more, more. The gowns were cut classically, closely, with a fondness for an open back and shimmy-generated shimmer. The low shoes were scattered with stones as if dropped from a pillaged treasure chest. Pleasure is precious and this collection struck a rich seam of it.
17 February 2020
Ashish’s shows are often pumping, sweaty, and strobe-lit. This season he chose another path, one which at first seemed less exciting but grew steadily to mesmerize. At the far end of the runway, two musicians, Candida Valentino and Michael Ormiston, played gongs, wind chimes, and birdcalls to weave a blissed-out soundscape. The collection that came out in front of them was a lengthy meditation on Indian tradition, heartily Ashish-ified.Embroideries from Rajasthan and Shisha mirror work, especially prevalent in Gujarat, the designer said, were the two main decorative subjects. The mirror work—small circular mirrors embroidered onto the fabric behind them—was applied to denim pieces in mixed-wash panels or cotton jersey tracksuits. It was also re-created on the majority of pieces in this collection using Ashish’s beloved sequins. The results of both variations were very beautiful, wave after wave of glinting colored horizontal stripes on simple, almost uniform garments beneath them.The Rajasthani embroideries were more of a jumbled kaleidoscope and just as compelling. Ashish said he had mixed fabrics made by himself with vintage patches sourced from India to create collage garments that sometimes resembled ’60s-era hippy trailwear. As the musicians softly repeated their abstract mantras, the atmosphere in the room became so hushed you could hear the clack-clack-clack of the beads bashing together on a mixed material coat as it passed by. The jewelry, handmade by Ashish from discarded woodprint blocks and other objects he had picked up here and there, clacked and thwacked satisfyingly too.Near the end, a witchy woman held aloft a branch from which streamed incense smoke. Ashish had quoted the “sex guru” and meditation cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (aka Osho) on his press release, and the back of one black sweatshirt featured 19 suggestions (all of which began with the letterf) once made in a lecture by Rajneesh’s right-hand woman, Ma Anand Sheela. Why was that? Ashish said: “I suppose I wanted to give a feeling of my own type of cult, in a way.” It was a cult you wanted to join.
16 September 2019
Poor Ashish Gupta had a nasty case of the flu and was at home, his delirium heightened by the British over-the-counter flu medication Night Nurse, when he decided to build a collection based on the crocheted blanket knit by his grandmother that he was wrapped up in. That fevered inspiration led to a lineup that did indeed contain a powerful dose of crochet, none of which was either knit or contained any wool. Every panel on every garment was made up of hundreds of painstakingly applied sequins.Thanks to the spotlights, you could see that close up, as the models walked by. And thanks to the sonorous but not overloud live gong soundtrack, you could hear the clothes rattling as they moved. Beyond the crochet, the aesthetic shifted between shiny grunge (slouchy knits in tinsel-toned stripes, mom jeans with scarlet sequined embellishments) and shiny uptown (a Chanel-channeling skirtsuit in a metallic green and red complete with pussy bow and pearls, huge gold goddess gowns). The shoes, by Central Saint Martins student Gui Rosa, were fantastic: traditional slingbacks, sandals, and booties that were grafted onto panels of knit. The color stories were very beautiful—a sequined lavender slip dress over a scarlet underlayer was particularly punchy.Following several seasons of statement Ashish shows, this one had nothing to declare but the clothes. They absolutely merited being the center of our attention.
18 February 2019
Ashish Gupta’s set and staging faithfully evoked a glorious, grimy, lose-your-mind, did-it-even-happen, underground house party. The floor was covered with spare pieces of carpet and vinyl and sprinkled with fans. Wide-eyed, jittery boys up-and-downed on ad hoc podiums. The DJ worked behind a mismatched wall of speaker stacks, against which, on one side, a boy and a girl leaned in and made out. Across from them two girls in PVC did the same.According to Gupta, he’s hit a startling upgrade by deploying sequins that are hole-in-the-middleOshaped rather than full circles. He said this makes his garments tough, light, stretchy, and, as a consequence, perfectly practical attire for a nine-hour stint of nosebleed techno and old-school house music in a dark room filled with similarly inclined sybarites of every persuasion.The sequin-etched graphic on his second hoodie readS&M Sex and Magicin honor of something Gupta had recalled Robert Mapplethorpe once said. Around it came a chorus of gender nonspecific slinky, sparkly partywear—sequined bikini bottoms paired with one-shoulder sequined shifts, sequined minidresses, paillette-detailed short tracksuits, sequined camo miniskirts, a sequined trench (under a sequined bikini), as well as the occasional incongruously executive sequined shirt. It was worn by models who had water poured over them backstage in order to look authentically sweaty.In London there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the closure of many famed clubs over the past few years. Today’s blast of tinnitus-tinged pleasure from a veteran of ’90s club Heaven (Gupta was in fact banned from the famous Charing Cross nightclub for behavior he preferred not to specify) was a sweet reminder of what once was and what probably, somewhere in the underground, still is.
16 September 2018
When Ashish Gupta was 16, he said after his show tonight, he took a work placement in a clothing factory in Delhi at his mother’s prompting. The factory made clothing for distribution in the U.S.—cheap high-street stuff—and Gupta was given the chance to sketch some designs. He worked on a floral pattern, which eventually went into production. That was over two decades ago, yet very recently—while browsing a vintage store in Texas—he found a garment from then bearing his first commercially applied creative gesture.This floral reunion prompted a nostalgic collection held around a set of shuttered storefronts that were meant to evoke the small-business multiplicity of a night market, and which mixed ideas of high and low and taste both good and bad. The tinsel-strafed sweaters, pants, and “jeans” in Technicolor Lurex wands were meant to reflect what Gupta said is an Indian street style trend. There was also a long riff in sequin on Mexican blankets, and a not-so-sly aside that took a dig at thoughtless consumerism:American Excess,Masturbate, andViva(L’Amore) were all in sequin logo hacks of famous credit card brands. Maxi dresses in patched velvet and sequin, of course, were lovely.As ever at this show, the diversity of the casting was as multitudinous as the colors of the designer’s beloved sequins—a rainbow. Gupta is a designer who, sadly, has sometimes felt ahead of his time. But not a minute too soon, our time might at last be catching up with him.
18 February 2018
There were disco balls embedded into the runway. More hung from above. Violet Chachki and Jodie Harsh were opposite, looking fabulous and up for fun. Woo-hoo! This was going to be a fabulously celebratory, super-tough expression of resistance and resilience—like last season but more so!Jumping to conclusions rarely lands where you expected. When the lights came up to a live harpist’s dripping melancholy melody, they were wanly soft. They bounced off the disco balls and reflected above—a shimmering star-scape—as we reflected afresh on Ashish’s only show note, as said by Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”This Spring show was infused with a deep, sepulchral gloom through which stalked beautiful barefoot alt-fabulous denizens of the dark. The opening look offeredGood Mourningon a black hoodie over a silver skirt.Witch,declared the second look—a trained black minidress—set, of course, with a gazillion pins. Next came a small series of rhinestone-set pieces—a long black dress and a skirt were followed by items in a lace especially commissioned by Ashish in Delhi of moons and stars and pentagrams. There were virginal pagan-offering dresses in white celestial lace, cotton separates spackled with rhinestones, and two coven sisters in a set of ruffle-ruched sequined gowns. A men’s silver sequined jacket offeredRest in Peaceon its back. A girl’s sequined tee declaredA heart is a heavy burden,while another’s cotton one just saidQueer.Around the heads of some models whirred tiny little LED lights, attached by optical cable to the blades of tiny battery-powered fans set into the wearers’ hair: These funny accessories were by Rottingdean Bazaar.So who were these witchy, queer, supernatural, superfine phantoms? Why, while so very beautiful, were they so very down? Said the designer: “In my head, it’s just this mood I’ve been in for the last couple of months, a dark place. And I don’t want to fight it and do something that I’m not feeling—I might as well just use it and treat it as a catharsis.”He added: “I thought I would do a celestial, ethereal, and sad collection that is mourning something, but it’s also hope, it’s new things, it’s starting again.”The recent eclipse, Ashish later mentioned, had helped galvanize the inky black mood of this beautiful show. Let’s hope it also reminds him that the light eventually returns.
19 September 2017
The backdrop was a broken heart, the runway a yellow brick road. Down it, writ in sequins, sparkled a passionate, loving, and bold appeal for resistance and solidarity aimed squarely at the USA:Stay great, despite.To see the full message history of this comprehensively signified show, scroll with relish through the slideshow. Just a few of them included the Mexican wrestling makeup, the rainbow openers, thenasty womanchest-piece, thedon’t give up the daydreamtrack top, the Planned Parenthood check shorts-suit. It looked like some home run of a deal had been struck with the Major League Baseball licensing authorities: A Cubs shirt readstronger together, a Mets shirt readunity in adversity, while the Red Sox offerednever give up. Frankie, a street-cast big leather daddy, gave top ’tude in awhy be blue when you can be gay!tee. It was all-inclusive and uplifting—and the editor next to me was crying by the end of it—but it was more than mere “snowflake” empty gesture. It was strong.Backstage, Ashish said of the set: “I was reading about how Oz was representative of Washington and how the hurricane of Dorothy was the political turmoil that happened at the time. It was so symbolic. Every little thing was symbolic of what is happening now—we need to be united in a message of love and unity and stand up together against all the f***ed-up mess that is going on.”Love trumps hate. We’re not in Kansas anymore.
20 February 2017
Ever since the vote on Brexit this summer, there has been an alarming rise in reports of racially motivated attacks and hate crimes. Britain’s exit from Europe has emboldened the country’s racists. Last nightAshishGupta—who emigrated from Delhi to London in 1996—gave his take: “I know people who have been abused recently. It’s very upsetting. You know, when Brexit happened, it was the first time in 20 years I felt that maybe I am unwelcome in the country I consider my home.”Gupta took his bow wearing a T-shirt that readImmigrant, following his beguiling, sentimental, and moving revel in Indian-ness—and everything-ness. “Tonight I wanted to celebrate Indian culture, because it is also such an integral part of British culture,” the designer explained.This collection was culturally specific, yes. But it was also about the cultural intermingling that Gupta personifies. His intricate embroidery and sequin work was applied with equal love to saris, salwars, churidars, lungis, and sherwanis as it was to track pants, tracksuits, denim basketball shorts, T-shirts, and other staples of urban sportswear. There was a group of whimsically full-skirted Bollywood leading-lady dresses, too. At the far end of the runway a blind sitar virtuoso named Baluji Shrivastav played intoxicatingly. One model—Richie Shazam—bravely walked a look accessorized by a huge live snake coiled around his neck. The snake came from a reputable animal handler, while Shazam hailed from New York.Gupta said afterward, “I’ve done a lot of casting on Instagram and the street. You know, I think people concentrate on black models or white models when there is a whole rainbow. How many Indian models or mixed-race models or everything-else models do you see?” Although marinated in the sensations of foreboding and alienation that have beset so many immigrant Britons in recent months, this was an uplifting, personal, and politically relevant collection from a designer whom we can all be proud of.
20 September 2016
This collection should close Saturday night at London Fashion Week, not Monday. Why? Because Ashish Gupta consistently provides the most convincing party-starting runway experience on the British schedule.Even before the first look came out there was push, shove, and chatter as organizers of this oversubscribed show squeezed attendees into every possible last nook and cranny. Then the first few beats of The Orb’s immortal ambient musical hallucinogen “Little Fluffy Clouds” fired up, and we were off. The first look was a gorgeous girl all in soft pink—from her wig via her pants and top down to her heels. The second look was a gorgeous girl all in apricot—from her wig via her spaghetti-strap minidress down to her heels. The third look was a gorgeous girl in a slightly less soft pink than before—from her wig down to her scoop-neck paillette-fringed dress down to her heels.And so it went on, for many joyous looks afterward: a celebration of hold-the-phone monotone. Backstage afterward, Gupta said he’d initially been inspired by a box of crayons, then added: “I thought it would be lovely to have each girl in one color, head to toe. And then I was looking at ’80s luxury couture—a little bit mumsy but made hyper-textural. There’s like 50 different types of fringe in the collection—crystals, beads, sequins, the works.”There’s no denying that at times it became a little samey: The onrush of single-color outfits and those ginormous wigs conjured visions of the Wiggles at a clown convention. One poor girl suffered the double runway indignity of a nipple-baring nefarious neckline and a skidding stiletto—she soldiered through it with grace. The rest of them, though, looked uniformly great. Each look, if worn in isolation rather than as just another crayon, was a damn-straight room ruler.
22 February 2016
The pile of sequins scattered haphazardly atop a bench caughtAshish Gupta’s eye as he and his team were in the studio doing research: “I thought they just looked beautiful,” the designer said. So, he thought, why try and impose order when disorder looks so great? Thus this Ashish collection memorably preambled with a group of girls who skated the runway variously wearing DIY-touched tracksuits, a slip skirt, a frayed and washed denim T-shirt, and lairy-fairy dresses wreathed in tulle. Like nigh on every look in his Spring 2016, theirs were speckled and heaped with Ashish’s random-on-purpose drifts of candy-tone sparkle. They also emanated a pleasing Larry Clark–ish truculence—attitude, basically.Then the show-run started in earnest with another ka-boom. On the left was Larry B, the London DJ; on the right was Jay Boogie; the man in Look 2 is Maximillian. The crowd whooped even harder. When they got to the end of the runway, they initiated what became another walk-the-floor flourish that ran through the show by tossing handfuls of sequins at the crowd. Later Larry came out again in a spaghetti-strap slip illustrated with some pertinent details. Ashish explained: “I always want my shows to be a celebration of subcultures. And I felt that Larry’s dress was an important statement in the context ofCaitlyn Jenner, but also racial issues, too.”This was a show in which the overwhelming message was its rejection of categories through inclusion: Because we’re all just little sparkles, jumbled together. There were some striking outfits in here, too—the one-piece hybrids of sari and jeans, most lovably—but that message was the thing.
22 September 2015
"SEX," it said on the front of a sweatshirt of faux furs hewn from various faux fauna in Look 2. This was worn above a matching mini and some shiny scarlet thigh-high platformed kinky boots. The opening section also featured lace-fringed '70s athletic shorts, a spaghetti-strapped lingerie-touched slip minidress…you get the idea. Ashish Gupta had one thing on his mind. But why? "I'm saying women should have the freedom to dress as they want," said the designer. "And I think it is interesting that when a woman dresses sexily, she is labeled a slut. Which I find strange and offensive—it should not be the case. Everybody should be free to enjoy sex without being labeled, and to dress how they want without being labeled. I'm interested in this 'Free the Nipple' on Instagram and the SlutWalks. I wanted it to be sexy and powerful—empowering."The male gaze can be objectifying, for sure—but is the best way to trump its breathy attention really to dress in clothes that Ashish said had been inspired by Parisian streetwalkers? "What I'm suggesting is that women should feel strong, powerful, and liberated enough to wear what they want to wear and enjoy wearing it," he said. Fair enough. And there were easier to wear clothes here that seemed no less attention grabbing. The sequined camouflage pieces were powerfully strong, and rang with a delicious incongruity against roughed-up, sequined counterparts later in the show run. They looked hot.
24 February 2015
Retail is a mysterious world, and Ashish Gupta has proved that, surprisingly, sequins and tinsel belong as much in day-to-day contemporary wear as on the red carpet. Most women don't have the opportunity to wear the gowns they see at awards shows, but they still want some of that sparkle. Ashish's list of stockists continues to grow—Nordstrom is the latest—and the line's Topshop collaboration has been a great success; those Buffalo LED shoes, worn by the likes of Lily Allen and Katy Perry, can now only be found on eBay.For Spring, Gupta brought glamour into day looks via track pants, sweatshirts, jeans, and bomber jackets. The vibe was slouchy, sporty, and urban, with sequins mimicking blown-up snakeskin prints, or forming rainbow patterns on shorts, tops, and dresses. Trousers often had cutouts at the knee; face illustrations and 70s fringe detail reflected a growing Spring trend. There was also a touch of rhinestone-cowboy nostalgia, with little suede patches at the back of jackets.
16 September 2014
Right before his show, Ashish Gupta announced that he's doing another Topshop collaboration—not a few pieces this time, but a full collection with around thirty looks, including swimwear. Gupta had been in his native India practically up to the eleventh hour before his Fall Ashish show. He may want to consider making that a habit given the result it had on his collection today.For such a shy man, Gupta is an amazingly flamboyant showman, and that came through in a show that carried a now-expected fever pitch drama, superb soundtrack, and high-octane love from the audience. The first dress got the crowd excited—a shimmery pink sequin gown that had Lily Allen snapping her camera like crazy in the front row. Gupta is well known for his love of sequins, but today he surprised with pearls in abundance. They were his new sequins, and he elegantly placed them on pieces that had something he hasn't been known for until now: silhouette. The baggy, shapeless looks from seasons past were gone. Here there was more structure in blouses, trousers, and dresses, especially in a prom queen tulle skirt that had uncharacteristically sharp lines.Gupta used LED lights that sparkled and shimmered on platform trainers and underneath the layers of his tulle skirts. Sticking to the twinkly effect, he also experimented with tinsel-silver threads hung off a tracksuit that, again, had a more refined shape than in previous outings. Said Gupta backstage: "If I was going to do a jogging suit, I wanted it to be the sharpest one ever." Despite the sequined denim, tinsel, and overall sparkle, this wasn't just a lighthearted romp. Gupta surprised with some extraordinary tissue-paper-like looks: The craftsmanship involved was truly impressive. Maybe that's why he holed up in India for so long.
16 February 2014
We've finally found something that Ashish Gupta likes more than sequins, and that is Coca-Cola: Its slogan was seen over and over again, emblazoned in sequins (of course) in his show today. Ashish's narrative was one that many will relate to, about a party girl who, after a particularly late night, rolls out of bed, throws a sweatshirt over the party dress she passed out in the night before, and nips out to the corner shop for that ultimate hangover remedy: Coca-Cola.Ashish had his girl pegged, down to the mismatched socks, messy hair, and grocery-shop bag festooned with sequins. The story was also about the internationality of the shop owners: They are Indian, Arabic, African. Said Ashish: "My local corner shop is owned by Arabs, and I love seeing everyday products like beans stacked next to exotic products like figs, where the packaging has this wonderful lettering that looks like calligraphy." That explains looks like this show's gray sweatshirt suiting, and caftanlike robes with Arabic characters spelling out "Thanks for coming," "Joy," or "Love." It also explained the abundance of African and Indian chunky jewelry—never mind the regal crowns that might've belonged to a Viking. "It was all a celebration of everything international and what a great multicultural city we live in," Gupta explained.Looks to note included loose denim trousers in rainbow sequins and a dress that crossed zebra and leopard prints. Ashish has a bona fide groupie base of fashion students who stand for hours to get into his show, and the cheers and hoopla can reinvigorate even the most cynical critic. But now that he's nailed the whole sequin/pop culture/underground-cool thing, we wish he would turn his eye more to shape and structure. When that happens, who knows how high his star could rise.
13 September 2013
Ashish Gupta's party girl has blown the budget—time to get a job, and we're not talking an office gig, but rather some pretty butch construction work. "I have been seeing building works everywhere, and it occurred to me that the construction worker wardrobe consists of some very hardworking, protective, and durable gear. Someone just needed to glam it up," said the designer whose calling card is his camp and exuberant use of sequins.The tough-girl look (think Jenny Shimizu on a work site) called for pieces that were deconstructed and slouchy, with techno fabrics used to create paper bag–waist skirts and trousers. Looks had safety belt/reflective tape features printed onto them as well as plastic pockets that could hold nails or screws. Patchwork denim pinafores looked like something a worker would pull on after a long shift. (OK, we cave—we've now seen pinafores so many times that they must be acknowledged as a trend.)Noteworthy looks included a fringed houndstooth blouse teamed with orange sequined cargo pants with padded knees, and a fringed blanket cover-up. A hologram jumpsuit made its fans whoop and holler with delight (mainly students and Topshop-ettes in the standing-room-only section in the back). The only variation from the working girl theme was a soigné silk trenchcoat that seemed rather grown-up for Ashish's grunge girl, especially with that shocking wind-tunnel hair in acrid yellow and orange.The designer took the working girl metaphor to another level with his sequined safety vest: "In parts of Spain, it's the law that prostitutes wear safety vests to make themselves visible to passing traffic. I thought, well, if you have to wear it, may as well make it the coolest garment ever," he said. Cool, yes, and with that fluorescent orange, visible from space. This collection will do nothing but delight Ashish's hard-core fans. But if sequins and hard graft aren't your thing, look away now.
18 February 2013
There is one thing you should know before we start: Ashish Gupta likes sequins. If you don't, stop reading now. There is, frankly, no getting away from them in this collection. "I'm Serious" read the slogan on the sweatshirt of the first look out. Read that as "Serious About Sequins."Now let's begin. In his latest collection, Ashish Gupta explores the life of a female "mathlete." She has a certain charm to her sloppy way of dressing. Gupta puts his spin on the school uniform—though his spin, naturally, includes plentiful sequins. They are on everything, but they are at their best as gray sequins on the gray marl pieces, offering a lovely texture and visual effect, particularly on an open-backed hoodie. There were also some great full sequined dresses in the show, particularly a blue one-sleeve, high-split short creation and a floor-length silver and gold shaggy sequined affair that looked particularly good with the crisp, white Reebok trainers that were the footwear of choice for the collection. Another thing that this reviewer particularly loved were the sequined socks that might appear slight but were a perfect accessory. It was just a shame that these particular pieces could not shine—quite literally—in all the sequin overkill. The T-shirt at the end read, "Très Fatigué." That about sums it up. Naturally, it was covered in sequins.
17 September 2012
Ashish Gupta is a surprise new entry to London Fashion Week: a graduate of Central Saint Martins equipped with a big, bright sense of humor. At a moment when many designers are solemnly setting themselves the task of making cheerful clothes, here comes Gupta with the genuine article. Call it Pop African with a sprinkling of Bollywood glitter. Then throw in a bit of vintage Americana, and you're nearly there.Even that description isn't quite equal to the gold-and-green African scissor-printed trench that opened this show. Or the sequined, re-embroidered boleros and A-line shirts with their loud, jolly patterns of red fish or outsize flowers. Together with shiny metallic madras kilts, cartoony jogging suits, and spangled-up Minnie Mouse T-shirts, it adds up to a collection of young, accessible pieces with gorgeous production values.Which is no wonder, when you consider the back story: Gupta was born in New Delhi, came to London to study, and now has his vibrant clothes hand-printed and re-embroidered in India. Part of multicultural Britain, and something to be proud of.
20 September 2004