Gaurav Gupta on His Paris Return, Rooted in the Idea of Advait

Gaurav Gupta is a rare, once-in-a-generation couturier whose hardened, futuristic waves and silhouettes belie a strange poetry. And one that is steeped in ancient philosophy and the moving constancy of human melancholy. As we speak on the eve of his couture presentation at the Paris Fashion Week, one thing becomes amply clear. The 46-year-old couturier is back this season, once with no intention to dazzle but instead to continue questioning: himself, his process, and the deeper philosophies that have underlined his work over the years.

“Every time I show in Paris, it feels like returning to a place that tests you honestly,” he reflects, noting the quietly heavy creative weight he finds himself carrying with his presentation this season. “This season feels more internal than many before. It’s less about creating a spectacle and more about challenging myself as a creator and a human being.”

This introspective spirit of enquiry has even permeated his atelier in the days leading up to the show. The atmosphere, he describes, is intense but beautifully focused and marked by a near-sacred silence as his team sinks into the final stages of creation. Yet, even within this gravity, moments of levity find their way in. “The smallest things become dramatic,” he laughs. “A missing thread feels like the end of the world, and then five minutes later everyone is laughing about it.”

Gupta’s work has long existed at the crossroads of sculpture, fashion, and futurism, but for him, every couture collection begins at a far more elemental point: emotion. “If I don’t feel something deeply, form and technique become empty exercises,” he explains. “Emotion gives direction, and form tells the technique what it needs to become.” This season’s emotional core emerged from a moment of personal confusion that gradually evolved into a broader philosophical inquiry.

The Idea of Advait

Following his last couture presentation, when media outlets globally mislabelled Navkirat Sodhi as his wife, Gupta found himself questioning how easily relationships, identities, and even creativity get framed through rigid binaries. From that reflection arose the idea of ‘advait’ or opposing forces coexisting within a single form, rather than competing against one another. It is a concept that feels especially resonant in today’s world that finds itself increasingly drawn to absolutes.

Translating such abstraction into couture demanded innovation on multiple fronts. Among the most striking developments this season is a new thread-engineering language, designed to map nervous systems and energy points across the body — most stunningly seen in a twin set of dresses that are as breathtaking as they are pathos-inducing. Gupta and his team also collaborated with watch specialists, deconstructing timepieces and reimagining them as couture surfaces — an exercise in both technical mastery and poetic symbolism. Sculptural corsetry inspired by the sculpted torsos of ancient Indian stone sculptures, built through moulded fibre techniques that took months to perfect, further pushes the boundaries of what couture construction can be.

Not Looking Indian, But Coming From India

While Gupta is acutely aware of his position as an Indian designer on the haute couture calendar, his approach to representation remains nuanced. “I don’t try to make my work look Indian,” he says. “I try to make it come from India.” For him, that means carrying forward philosophical depth, spiritual inquiry, and a reverence for craftsmanship through a global visual language. This visionary attempt is best realised through his veiled saree, imagined in a lemon yellow shade. While this is barely the first saree-gown from the couturier, for the first time, the centuries-old drape seems to have reached a level of unmatched perfection, proportion, and poise in the designer’s hands.

In the heels of a year that has seen multiple outsiders lay their cultural spins on the foundational South Asian drape, Gupta’s carefully measured iteration appears as just the authoritative interpretation we needed on a global stage. “This season, in a quiet way, it also feels meaningful to be sharing that space with another Indian couturier [Rahul Mishra]. It reminds you that representation is not about one voice but about a collective presence finding its place on a global stage.”

As his brand expands — with his first bridal collection last August, and the launch of a standalone menswear showroom in Delhi earlier this month — Gupta remains committed to an evolving expansion plan that prioritises organic evolution over erasure of foundational house codes. “Innovation only works if it grows from your roots,” he explains. “The challenge is not to reinvent, but to deepen yourself every season.”

It is a philosophy that strangely finds itself reflected in Gupta’s pre-show ritual as well: a silent, solitary walk, to remind himself why he began designing in the first place. And when the final look exits the runway, celebration comes not in the form of a grand gesture but, “a small dinner with the team,” he says. “The real celebration is seeing their faces when the show is over.”