Lakme Fashion Week Winter Festive 2012 Preview - Rohan Arora

Okay, so let me get the bad news out of the way first. between my last post on his collection, and this preview, the super cute designer, Rohan Arora, got married! Considering his female fan following, and the immensely prolific designer's well-acknowledged talent, there must have been quite a few hearts broken. But there is good news yet, ladies. The man seems to have found his Muse, because he floors us yet again with a quirky, fascinating take on fashion footwear. And this time, he is irreverent, as usual, but with an unusual take that will have to laughing all the way from a bad hair day to a fabulous shoes day! Yup, you heard me. I have always believed that drop-dead awesome shoes are a perfect foil to a bad hair day. And Rohan's upcoming collection at the Lakme Fashion Week Winter Festive 2012, inspired by Indian Cinema's "Item Girls" and "Item Boys" promises to have people looking at your feet, all day long! "Item Songs" in Indian cinema are song and dance numbers introduced in a movie, to up the entertainment quotient of a film, and bring in more audience. these glamourous, high energy dances often become the highlight of the film, with the dancers even stealing the limelight from the actual leads of the story! And Rohan's shoes might be conspiring to do just that. I love the way this man thinks! I mean, everyone talks rhetoric when it comes to collection inspirations. Rohan gets funny and well, quite off the mark, in a very very nice way. He belongs to that new league of designer, who thankfully never had a decent one-on-one conversation with the mundane and the conventional. The "Item Collection", by Rohan Arora plays with exotic colours, intricate traditional embroidery and unconventional silhouettes, and includes a mix of varied materials like brocade,pure satin, sheep skin, pure silk and handwoven khadi. Unusual shoes from an unconventional designer, that surprisingly, hold well with a wedding trousseau as well as casual pair of shirt and denims. I can't stop gawking since I found these images in my inbox! Drool with me. Can't wait to see these at the show!

Lakme Fashion Week - Preview - Rohan Arora

He looks like your regular geek boy, with glasses. The kind when you see in a Rom-com, you know is going to transform into the college stud who will finally walk away with the girl, the basketball trophy, and the million dollar prize money on the random lottery he bought from a creepy friend who was, in fact, trying to cheat him.

And Carrie would approve of him.
Did anyone say shoes???

He designs shoes. Shoes that make you do a double take, and then make you gape. Then you realize that it’s rude to stare, and you find yourself thinking that you are not half as cool as the kind of person that wears the kind of shoes that Rohan Arora designs. But that’s wrong, you see. For the kind of shoes that Rohan Arora designs make people, even your regular college geeks who do NOT walk away with the girl, look cool.

Rohan, a Kolkata based designer, started the label “Rohan Arora” in 2008. Whatever he might say was the reason behind it, I believe that the REAL reason he started designing shoes was because he realized that there was a definite vacuum where great shoes, with an awesome sense of style married to a quirky sense of humor should have been. He knew that many a high end shoe closets were missing the kind of shoes that put an end to all conversation, when their wearer enters a room. Because these shoes command a new string of conversation: about them. About how intricately crafted wooden heels that look so stunning can also be very comfortable. About how sterile modernization can never ever beat the dying art of shoes made by hands.





Some shoes from Rohan's past collections

For this year’s collection, Rohan has designed 16 stunning pairs in a collection titled “Leela”. Irreverently fusing street-style fashion inspirations with vintage charms, he took almost two months to get the perfect look for his unusual creations: wooden heels with delicate Nakashi work on them, adorned with fun trinkets that make your feet do a waltz with joy. Rohan got his skilled artisans to create the timeless Nakashi motifs like peacocks, abstract flowers, butterflies, parrots and fish on the heels, to make his collection timeless.

Despite being created from wood, the blocks and wedges are incredibly tough, being made of mahogany, an extremely durable wood that renders itself well to Nakashi. For the uppers of the shoes, Rohan has used screen printed and block printed corduroy. Sheep skin lining, supposed to be the softest and the best inner lining, is just one of the fine details that make Rohan’s shoes a must-have for every fashionista worth her two pedicured feet.

Tomorrow, on the final day of the Lakme Fashion Week, Rohan will send 16 sets of happy feet down the runway. I can bet that as soon as the show will get over, the conversations will start. After all, who can stop talking about shoes like that! I think I can hear Carrie scream with joy.

A design from "Leela"

Lakme Fashion Week - Winter Festive 2010 - Rohan Arora

My bad fortunes continue! No sooner had I recovered, my dad was hospitalized with Hypoglycemia. It was a big scare for all of us, as appare4nlty it can get really serious! I am about done with trying times. Today is another day, and it’s bright and sunny outside, and I am not going to let a little bit of stormy weather get in the way of the last traces of summer we have left to enjoy.
The last of day of Lakme Fashion Week Winter Festive had a delightful surprise for the fashion lovers. The accessories show featured the extremely talented Rohan Arora. I met Rohan at his stall at “The Source”. An amicable, unassuming young designer, all smiles and filled with enthusiasm about his new collection. “The shoes are all hand-made, with a mix of printed fabrics, hand-painted khadi, and leather”, he informed the curious crowd naturally attracted to the quirky and colorful collection. Having started his label in 2008, Rohan has been creating high-end fashion footwear for numerous big names in Indian fashion design.
His collection featured at the Lakme Fashion Week was an eclectic mix of colors, with hand-painted posters of old films painted on strikingly edgy footwear. Models walked the ramp sporting ankle and calf length boots in shades of beige, brown, blue, orange and red. Spiral heels, cuffs, side flaps and flat lace-ups had the audience hooked to the trendy designs.


I am going to post the remaining reviews soon, and hope that if life is planning on springing any more surprises at me, they’d at least be pleasant ones. Will soon be visiting my favorite lovely blogs and catching up on all the glorious fashion and lifestyle news from all of you. Till then, take care and wait for some super exciting, life changing news from me!

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