How Indian designers are experimenting with the art of padding

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription

Victorian silhouettes, ruffled backsides, and sculpted couture from Anamika Khanna and Tarun Tahiliani at Hyundai India Couture Week | Photo Credit: Special arrangement

Anamika Khanna gave a man a backside. Not a metaphorical one or a clever cut of trousers, but a proper, rounded, emphatic backside, a few inches behind him.

He wore a sharply cut jacket, tailored close through the shoulders and chest, over trousers that disappeared beneath the sudden swell of fabric at the back. The look was part of ‘Moonlit Palace’, which opened this year’s Hyundai India Couture Week.

When Anamika Khanna gave a man a backside. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement

Anamika Khanna after she launched ‘Moonlit Palace’ at the Taj Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad | Photo Credit: Gulshan Sacheva

His body hadn’t changed, just the silhouette. “We created bustles, like how the Victorian bustles were created,” says Khanna. “Sometimes you use boning, and where required, metal.” She’d sell the look as shown if anyone were brave enough to wear it. “It opens up Pandora’s box after that,” she says.

Tarun Tahiliani followed days later with ‘Ang’, a conceptual exploration of the human form through sculpted couture. His intervention went further: sculpted abs, an emphatic hip, a fuller torso, an answer of sorts to the bewilderment over what the body is supposed to be.

Tarun Tahilian’s ‘Ang’ is a conceptual exploration of the human form through sculpted couture. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement

Each form was individually sculpted from layers of foam in an R&D room, then dressed in satin, lace, and, in one look, Kanjeevaram. He wanted the effect to feel “hard and soft, almost like marble or stone”. He was, as he put it, acting like a plastic surgeon through clothes.

Each form was individually sculpted from layers of foam, and then dressed in satin and lace. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement

The idea had been taking shape since January. At Tahiliani’s 30th anniversary show, a detachable boned ‘ tashreef bustle’ enlarged the hip. ‘Ang’ went further: padding beneath the clothes widened the hip and carved the abdomen.

In New York, Tahiliani had noticed a body ideal he found increasingly narrow. His answer was to alter the silhouette rather than ask the wearer to alter her body. “Everyone’s become too thin, too fit. You can be curvaceous, you can be Indian, you can have abs if you want,” he says. Some looks had them, some didn’t.

Tahilian’s padding beneath the clothes widened the hip and carved the abdomen | Photo Credit: Special arrangement