Innovating of homegrown craft and material - from Karthik Research breathing new life into age old embroidery to Payal Pratap highlighting the sheer potential of denim developed sustainably in myriad of ways.

The Taarini Anand played with the idea of restoration - putting her Nani who inspired her design journey on stage to open the show with a strong nod to what grounds her work; that of hand-knitting, patch working, mending, and valuing longevity and quality over fleeting trends.

For Anurag Gupta, his avant-garde exaggerated silhouettes found place and prime time as the Nexa Spotlight designer.

Sinking deep into the notion of a future that might be doomed, but also drawing from Japanese art, the collection titled ‘The New Primitive’ was sharp in concept, structure and material exploration.

For Payal Pratap’s Re|Elan collaboration that put their sustainably developed fabric in focus. Here, denim found new forms beyond jeans and jackets, flattering to the wearer while being innovative in design - ferns, wildflowers and botanicals that are signature to the designers’ language and key to her theme of ‘Memories Pressed in Time’ bringing the collection together. Voluminous skirts and dresses to quilted and patchwork layering pieces emerged from the collection.

While Triune by Prasoon Sharma made its presence at the fashion week in a group show - the ‘Fragile Dreams’ collection was a meditation on the human condition - of fragility, and vulnerability, translated to garments through material exploration that was layered, and styling that blended structure with fluidity.