Designer Rahul Mishra, who showcased his "Village" collection here, prefers to stick to designing and leave the selling part to others. He says designers who retail become "less of designers and more of retailers" in the process of managing their own outlets.
Mishra, the winner of the 2013-14 International Woolmark Prize, said he just wants to design and not be burdened with what clicks and sells.
"I don't like the retailing part of fashion. I can just design and that's my strength. If I have to retail and design also then it's more of retailing and less of designing. That's what happens to designers who retaila then it becomes 'I have to create what sells'," Mishra said on the sidelines of the Blender's Pride Fashion Tour.
"I need to create first and if people like them, they buy. I take risks," he added.
Talking about the "Village" collection, Mishra said he wanted to showcase the potential of global villages.
"It's a fall-winter collection with an edgy look interspersed with motifs of sparrows, rooftops, windmills etc.
"The motifs are what we see in villages. Sparrow is a common entity that we associate with villages. But the look is sketchy with lots of black-and-whites, white-on-whites. It gives a feel as if it's from a sketch book. So it's completely Western," he said.
His collection titled "Fourth Dimension" was recently showcased in Paris. Mishra credited his background as a physics graduate and his fascination with the universe as his inspiration for the collection while for the "Village" line, the self-sufficiency and sustainability of villages, encouraged him to translate the ideas into design.
As his tribute to the sustainability of villages, Mishra says, the source of the wool yarn is from an Australian hamlet, the fabric from a Japanese village and the embroidery is by craftsmen from a village in West Bengal.
