The Alika Project stands out for the unconventional convergence of fashion, art and architecture, through the lens of couture czar JJ Valaya. In his 25 years in the Indian fashion and design industry, very rarely has Valaya not pushed the envelope of his creative pursuits.
But with this project, unveiled last month at a glittering gala at Delhi’s Bikaner House, he has taken the experimenting a notch further by blending his own aesthetics with that of other design representatives of the country. The project explores myriad ways of how they perceive his creation, the waist-length Alika jacket, a garment that has been a fixture in Valaya’s repertoire ever since its birth in 2010. It takes brilliance and a wee bit of courage to think out of the box in the fickle world of fashion today.
The project, in collaboration with Swarovski (highlighting the designer’s association with the crystal brand for 15 years), brought the curtain down on the year-long celebrations as Valaya clocks 25 years in the Indian fashion and design industry. “I wanted to do something with fashion and photography that was intimate, multi-dimensional and challenged stereotypes. Also, I wanted to see how these minds interpreted the Alika, a deconstructed form of the structured jacket.
For the project, we created 25 reversible Alikas, one for each year. One side is embroidered and embellished with Swarovski and the other side is printed. This enables the seamless shift from a day to night look. Fashion needs to be versatile now,” elaborates Valaya.
Among the 24 creative spirits that the veteran picked are: Gaurav Jai Gupta, Akanksha Arora (Amrapali), Sumant Jayakrishnan, Rina Singh, Nappa Dori, Suket Dhir, Peter D’Ascoli, Punit Jasuja, Aplana & Neeraj, Tanira Sethi, Aparna Chandra (Nicobar), Payal Pratap Singh, Palak Shah (Ekaya), Archana Rao, Pero, Antar Agni, Malini Banerji, Pernia Qureshi, Gautam Kalra, and Swati & Sunaina.
What made this list interesting is that it didn’t necessarily feature the couturier’s old friends and peers, and revealed how Valaya was stoked by the notion of working with minds distinctly different from his own. But the final images at the showcase testified that he enjoyed the process of unravelling how the two worlds converged to bring about an artistic explosion of sartorial brilliance.
Be it how Dhruv Kapoor’s pale pink dress flirted with an emerald Alika, how stylist Gautam Kalra sexed up the traditional apparel with a monokini and fishnet stockings, how Pernia Qureshi layered up chic drapes, how Aparna Chandra juxtaposed minimalism with opulence, how wonderfully Aneeth Arora married peasant chic and Indian workmanship and how a bespoke ivory zari Benarasi by Swati & Sunaina transported the iconic jacket into the hall of timeless elegance.
Apart from fashion designers, Valaya picked six names who don’t necessarily design outfits. “I like pushing boundaries, be it in fashion or design. They’ve interpreted the Alika diversely using their superior aesthetics and shown how one garment can be both traditional and edgy,” says the couturier, taking us through the 25 photographs as well as the styled mannequins at the unveiling.
For instance, when the couturier approached Peter D’Ascoli, the textile designer was intrigued. To him the waist length Alika was a perfect blend of the traditional and modern. “I imagined it as an elegant, ornamental Mughal biker jacket and paired it with our Misha printed silk dress to fuse heritage with global aesthetics,” says D’Ascoli who styled his wife and muse, fashion designer Cecile, for the shoot. The image had a certain bohemian edge to it.
“The Alika jacket is a bespoke manifestation of rich Indian craft and embroidery,” explains Valaya, adding, “The way it was styled by 24 creative spirits was fabulous. Their work and ethos have an innate Indianness, which is the mainstay of our label, and the choice was made focusing on that Indian element in their aesthetics.”
Every image had a story to tell. Stories that have made the journey of JJ Valaya memorable and special. “Next year we plan to take the Alika to global shores because it beautifully celebrates the happy confluence of the ethnic and the modern. It deserves to travel,” the virtuoso avers.