Rahul Mishra on Placing Indian Philosophy at the Heart of his show at Paris Couture Week

Rahul Mishra will always have Paris. The 46-year-old couturier connects with me on a call the evening before his 12th consecutive season in Paris and fifth consecutive couture showcase in the city. Yet, despite the familiarity, there is an odd sense of childlike glee in Mishra’s voice as he begins chatting with me from his atelier. “It feels so surreal and beautiful,” he says, with abject wonder in his voice, when speaking about the experience of seeing his clothes on human bodies and in motion for the first time. “When you’re creating something very abstract, very new, there are many hidden trials that happen. But seeing it on the actual models is a different energy altogether.”

Mishra’s collection this season is rooted in an ambitious and deeply philosophical idea: the five elements—ether, air, fire, water, and earth—interpreted through the lens of both ancient Indian thought and modern quantum physics. He draws connections between the Rig Veda’s panchabhuta and contemporary science, between metaphysics and material reality, and says, “According to quantum physics, 99.999% of the human body is emptiness. What we think of as matter is actually a very tiny fraction. The rest is energy, consciousness. So the human body becomes a miniature version of the cosmos itself.”

This idea of oneness with the universe runs like a poetic leitmotif through the collection, tying the varied elemental sections together with a fil de rouge of sorts. As I look at the images, I am taken aback by the austere elegance of a back-embroidered look that references the bending of time and space near a black hole, with embroidery radiating along the spine as though the body itself were a gravitational force. Another equally breathtaking piece captures fire not through synthetic materials or sculpted plastics, but through thousands of hand-embroidered stitches that seem to flicker and move. The sharp boldness and familiarity of Mishra’s silhouettes belie his training as an engineer with a subliminal love for astrophysics. But it is a careful examination of his layered embroidery that reveals the core poetry of his artistic outlook—much like the grand pathos of a Hans Zimmer score.

For Mishra, craft is not a decorative afterthought but the very language of storytelling. “It’s very easy to create water by melting acrylic sheets,” he says. “Many designers do that. It can look beautiful. But it won’t have craftsmanship.” Instead, Mishra renders water through months of experimentation in embroidery on organza—layer upon layer of painstaking handwork designed to mimic fluidity and motion. “Nobody has attempted something like this before,” he says. “Getting it right took months of iteration.”

Legendary milliner Stephen Jones, who is collaborating with Mishra again this season, has also remarked on the designer’s integrity as an artist. It is a moment that Mishra recounts with visible emotion, as he relays their decision to keep the hats and veils for this collection resolutely couture: “modern, but entirely handcrafted.”

The show took place at the “anti-museum” the Palais de Tokyo, in the city’s 16th arrondissement. The choice comes on the heels of Mishra wanting a neutral, almost brutalist backdrop for his runway, so that the clothes could come alive without distraction. “I wanted people to experience these five elements in a very neutral space and do nothing theatrical,” he explains. “Just let the clothes come alive on their own.”

After 12 years, Mishra still describes returning to Paris as an emotional experience. “Paris has become my playground,” he says. “I was speaking to Gaurav [Gupta], who is back on the calendar this season, and we both agreed that if we want to take India forward, more of us need to be here.” For Mishra, representing Indian craftsmanship on this global stage is both a responsibility and a privilege. “Deep inside, we are artists,” he muses. “Instead of paint and brush, we use thread and needle.”

This poetic outlook also extends to his liminal understanding of couture as a medium in itself. As the global fashion industry finds itself at a turning point of sorts—figuring out ways to forge future paths while not letting go of past nostalgia—Mishra firmly believes in couture’s renewed relevance as lying beyond commerce. “Couture gives us a reason to live,” he says simply. “It creates happiness, excitement, something beyond business. In troubled times like ours, that is why people are constantly returning to it.”