She’s identified at present for her steel-wire saris however Rimzim Dadu began her profession with fashions stomping out in mini attire and lace-up males’s footwear. That stated, she created her personal textiles from day one. And whereas her debut at couture week is only some years previous, everyone agrees that couture is what she has been doing all alongside.
The contradictions which can be Rimzim Dadu have made her one of India’s most fascinating designers. As American novelist Susan Sontag wrote, ‘To name something as interesting implies challenging old orders of praise,’ and Dadu is a tiny, unassuming powerhouse whose work, straddling textile innovation, western sensibility, and Indian weaving heritage, has stored me engaged over time. Hers was additionally one of essentially the most fascinating reveals of the current Hyundai India Couture Week. Titled Oxynn, she began engaged on it per week after her second daughter was born in February and divulges that she has by no means felt extra weak with a set as a result of each ensemble felt so private.
Designer Rimzim Dadu
The assortment took her obsession with the patola a step additional — with a wool and leather-based model of the double ikat weave featured at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum within the Fabric of India exhibition in 2015. “The Lambani tribes of Gujarat really stood out for the textiles they wear, their craft and jewellery. It was so rooted and traditional, I thought it would be interesting to reimagine what futuristic versions of tribal weaves and crafts could look like,” says Dadu. In a bigger lexicon, the Delhi-based designer’s work is an element of the India Modern aesthetic espoused by a handful of designers, together with Amit Aggarwal, Gaurav Gupta, Anand Bhushan, Arjun Saluja, and Kallol Dutta.
India Couture Week reveals have been dominated by lehengas, embroidery, and cancan prior to now decade. Dadu’s reimagining of Banjara tribal work was removed from that. Oxidised jewelry, mirror work, and tactile craftsmanship had been became sculptural corsets, harem pants, and East-meets-West form-fitting lehenga-gown saris. To echo designer Rajesh Pratap Singh (identified for his trendy minimalist experimentation with conventional strategies, textile innovation, and unbending originality) who has seen Dadu’s work in pictures, “It looks fantastic.”
Designer Rajesh Pratap Singh
Bridging prêt and couture
Interesting, nevertheless, comes with its personal baggage. It’s often shorthand for area of interest or not within the mainstream. And but, Dadu has breached that chasm. Over the previous few years, her label has develop into half of the mainstream. What was established together with her metal sari, worn by Sonam Kapoor at Cannes in 2016, gathered steam together with her menswear line in 2019, and accelerated when her model turned 15 in 2022, marked by a present on the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.
Right after, she debuted at India Couture Week in 2023, opened a standalone menswear retailer in DLF Emporio in Delhi in 2024, and expanded her footprint to Hyderabad in 2025. Multibrand retail is restricted to Pernia’s Pop-Up Shop; she additionally does footwear and baggage, and is planning to go worldwide with an enlargement to West Asia. Her superstar line-up is rising, too, from actors Kareena Kapoor Khan to Janhvi Kapoor, and philanthropist Radhika Merchant Ambani. Ambani’s outing in Dadu’s creation has even sparked that absolute signal of being mainstream — a viral hate reel, extra on which later.
Rimzim Dadu’s Hyderabad retailer
According to Mumbai-based trend stylist Sohiny Das who has labored on her reveals for the previous 4 years, Dadu has managed a tough process: “Retain what she started with, but also evolve it dramatically, bridge prêt and couture, and be able to do both.” Das factors out that Dadu was very texture-based at first, however over time has realised the significance of form.
‘I’m actually creating for ladies’
Dadu, 38, now the mom of two ladies — Ose, three, and Raga, six months — spent her childhood, from the age of 5, at her father’s export home making her personal tie-and-dye patterns, watching embroidery being completed, and being fascinated by spools of threads and button machines. She began her label, then referred to as My Village, at GenNext, Lakmé Fashion Week 2007, proper after graduating from Pearl Academy in Delhi.
Over the years, she has experimented with paper, wool, silicon, chiffon, metal wires, acrylic with textiles, and leather-based, shredding them to develop cords and weaving these collectively to attain a construction that material wouldn’t enable. None of that is summary experimentation. “I’m not creating to prove a point or for museums. I’m really creating for women, for people. I actively think of how each piece can fit into their wardrobes, and the functionality of it is very important for me,” she says. Her on-line prêt ensembles are within the vary of ₹1-₹3 lakh.
And but, the truth that her work is in museums appears pure. Apurva Kackar, director of KNMA’s Institutional Affairs and Outreach, the place Dadu’s fifteenth anniversary present grew to become the primary bodily showcase of their Art x Fashion collection, factors out that the designer’s presentation was alongside an Anupam Sud retrospective on the museum and that each challenged the patriarchal house of printmaking and trend. “Dadu’s work blurs the boundaries between fashion, art, and material innovation, qualities that resonate strongly with our vision for the Art x Fashion series. She has consistently challenged conventional perceptions of textiles and craft, transforming materials into sculptural forms,” says Kackar. “This experimental, thought-provoking approach made her a natural fit for our collaboration.”
Challenging controversies
It’s shocking then that Dadu lately discovered herself within the eye of an Instagram storm being accused of copying a Tom Ford gown from his 2020 present for Radhika Merchant Ambani. Dadu, who was forwarded the reel by a bunch of individuals, is fuming. “Fringe dresses have been around for centuries. Tom Ford wasn’t the first to do one. It’s like saying I’ve copied patola. The first time I did fringe was in 2014. It was made with chiffon that had been ripped apart and made into cords. We created fringe dresses, tops, and a sari, before Tom Ford. I don’t think Tom Ford looked at me and copied it.” She provides, “There are bullies everywhere, and everybody who has an Instagram account now is a fashion guru, and we must listen to them.”
Rimzim Dadu at India Couture Week
Dadu’s annoyance is simple to know given her years of experimentation. Designer and pal of 20 years, Anand Bhushan, who recollects bonding over design, meals, and a shared panic at assembly present deadlines — he has flown with Dadu’s clothes from Delhi to Mumbai simply in time for her present — believes that what units her aside is her constant innovation. “A lot of designers lose that sense of originality, their need to innovate every season, to get seriously excited about their work. I’ve seen Rimzim from the time she was a kid partying every night and going to work in the mornings to becoming a mother of two beautiful daughters and managing a complete business, and innovating… it’s beautiful.”
The writer is a photographer and author.
