One of Manish Arora’s most sentimental garments may surprise you. Alongside all the designer’s glittering more-is-more maximalist gowns covered in baroque-like gilding and a paradise of hand-embellishment is a simple fuschia button-down shirt. Stamped with small but mighty silver metallic florals–it debuted at one of his first collections in the late 1990s and was owned by one of his late great friends, Catherine Levy, who always joked that she’d one day give the shirt to a museum. And so, her wish became reality when the exhibition Manish Arora: Life Is Beautiful opened at SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film in Atlanta this week. It’s the first major retrospective for the designer–and one of the rare few solo fashion exhibitions dedicated to an Indian fashion legend who’s work, in his own words, “could only be designed by an Indian designer.”
Known for his iconic statements like “pink and gold are my religion,” Arora has been creating wearable maximalist fantasies since the late 1990s. Think: colorfully textured pieces layered with references as far flung as Burning Man to the trance dance parties of Goa. It’s over the top, decadent and opulent; it’s extra. Beginning in the early 2000s, Arora became one of the first major Indian designers to show at London Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week–also taking on a short stint as creative director of Paco Rabanne in the early 2010s. His influence is wide–dressing the likes of Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj and more–and standing in as one of the most extreme and over-the-top designers in Paris for years.
Along with Rafael Gomes, director of fashion exhibitions at SCAD FASH, Arora painstakingly contacted his biggest collectors and clients throughout the years to secure pieces for the show. “It was fun to get in touch with people I haven’t spoken to for 15 years,” Arora tells Vogue. “A lot of people were very enthusiastic, a lot of people were not sure, but in the end, I think we did very well.”
Colin Douglas Gray
Sitting inside SCAD’s museum on a cool Atlanta afternoon—his nails painted gold, his fingers stacked with fistfuls of glimmering gold rings, his outfit slightly metallic and layered with tailoring—he explains that most of the pieces in the show are, in fact, one-of-a-kind. “Some of these pieces, I didn’t even own,” he says. “I didn’t collect my archives so we got together and got in touch with people and got them. These pieces are like nothing that you will ever find anywhere else.” One example? A Paris-themed rainbow skirt depicting the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and the Moulin Rouge’s famous Can-Can dance in action, among other landmarks. It’s chain stitched by hand–approximating hours and hours and hours of work, akin to couture-level fashion. “It’s typical cliche Paris, but it’s one of my favorite pieces,” he says. “It was impossible to reproduce, so there’s only one.”
Inside the exhibition, a feast for the eyes manifests in the form of different dream-like scenarios. There’s a dessert-themed wall anchored by crystal-covered ice cream cones and cupcakes, and a fantasy section, flanked with imagery of pastel skies and floating fabric castles. The show is divided into 13 themes that best represent the designer’s body of work. There’s also a rare glimpse into his legendary jewelry pieces–which play with ideas of traditional ceremonial dress and whimsy (pineapples, gingerbread houses and unicorns abound). On the walls, there are archive and childhood photographs of Arora himself with hand-written notes: “My first time in drag,” one reads. A handbag shaped like a milkshake, a Swarovski crystal dress rendered of jigsaw puzzle pieces and a floor-length gown complete with a train and composed entirely out of leather-like butterflies. There is a lot to see.
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