Chennai | Fashion designer Arya Giri’s new line fuses poetry and whimsy

One barely breaks a sweat while solving a quirky word search in fashion designer Arya Giri’s lookbook for her latest collection, The September Issue. Turns out though, it is the easiest way to decipher her luxury pret line.

Words from this puzzle like ‘aubergine’, ‘CMYK’, ‘funny figures’ and ‘storytelling’ are manifested on shirts, waistcoats, skirts and kurtas. They are a clear giveaway of what one can expect to see from the Chennai-based designer this season. Inspired by Vogue magazine’s iconic September edition, which predicts fashion trends for fall and summer, this line is full of colours that pop (think chilli red), while being layered on sophisticated fabric with interesting cuts.

“I was very inspired by Dr Seuss and [Spanish fashion label] Loewe,” she says, pointing to some of her collection displayed at Collage in Nungambakkam. She adds that her brief tryst with journalism in college helped with two elements in the collection: the concept of an issue that predicts a fashion calendar; and the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key) colour model that one can often find in newspapers and magazines.

Arya grew up in many places across the globe including the US and Singapore. She however, found herself in India during every long holiday. Trips to the subcontinent involved tagging along with her mother, part of the Zamorin family of Travancore, who was involved in the revival of handlooms. “A lot of time was spent at villages around Kanchipuram, interacting with weaving families who would sit at pit looms and work together for hours and days, creating just one garment, a sari,” she says.

This love for fabric remained despite Arya dabbling in several other pursuits including writing and dance. “I always loved fashion but I tried my hand at a couple of other interests. It was during COVID that I enrolled at LASALLE College of the Arts and began understanding the technical aspects of fashion. It involved learning about using tools, understanding seam lines and drawing patterns. The final year project manifested in the form of the eponymous brand,” she says.

Arya says that every line stems from a particular poem that she writes. As the words spill out on her notes app on her phone, her imagination comes alive with colours and silhouette, she says. But it is not all serious, poignant and introspective. Whimsy is at the core of her collection. One can find shirts with ‘funny figures’, doing odd things like lifting weights and carrying sledge hammers. They function as narrators who end up constructing garments, she says.

“I was a goofy child with a classic mushroom cut who was obsessed with Bollywood music. I would sit in front of the television after school, pretending that I was in a board meeting, twisting and eating noodles because I thought it was sophisticated. I would also read books upside down because I was allergic to reading. Whimsy has always been part of my life,” she says.

Arya says that there has been a boom in the Indian pret scene recently and she is excited to be part of the movement. She is inspired by designers like Dhruv Kapoor who make affordable, interesting designer wear. It is how she’d like to fashion her label too. She adds that she does not stick to the traditional four-collection-a-year target and likes dropping her designs every once in a while to keep things fresh and light. After all, it is what Dr. Seuss would have liked.