Why Rajesh Pratap Singh's fashion metaphors echo Ziggy Stardust and Purple Rain
"Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today. To get through this thing called life."
- Prince
"Moonage daydream" is what Ziggy Stardust sang. It meant everything and nothing. It meant pulling things at random. David Bowie wrote it using the cut up method and as we sat in the audience watching the models come and go in athleisure outfits in black and white and metallic, it was almost watching alter egos of our own selves who want to jump black holes, travel the galaxies. And of course, the meaning is in the metaphor.
Rajesh Pratap Singh's unnamed collection at the recently concluded Amazon India Fashion Week reminded me of star men, the black hole jumpers who David Bowie created in Ziggy Stardust. I like spacemen of no particular intent.
I think I spotted Bowie on one of the outfits. Bowie once said all art is unstable. And there could be multiple interpretations. I subscribe to that belief. Although Pratap says art is not fashion. And yet, his creations are like installations with outfits suspended in steel, frozen in their flare and fall. Arrested almost. I like the idea of suspension of time and gravity. It is like being in outer space. I'd call his collection "moonage daydream".
That's just an indulgence in poetic licence. Or just an interpretation of his collection. And even if Rajesh Pratap, who is one of India's finest designers who has been at the forefront of innovating with textiles as with cuts, didn't really think of these metaphors, his designs led me to, which is what the purpose of design or art is. A transportative experience.
Like the star men, the models looked like they were travelling, jumping black holes. The runway was black and shiny. Almost metal. The FDCI president Sunil Sethi opened the show in a black jacket and black and white stripe athleisure pants and in his customary style, he didn't walk the straight walk but did a little twist, a little dance and the crowds cheered. Of course, he was being the black hole jumper then. Of course ours is a mad planet. Bowie said that. He also said it is doomed to madness. And it was a mad show with architecture in clothes, polka dots on face, and an insane mix of chaos of Jimi Hendrix's guitar notes and structured silhouettes cut to perfection to the point that it was at once a vision of space travelers in Gotham city-like places with high-rises tearing the skies with their highly polished surfaces.
He is a master cutter. He is also many other people. And for the lovers of black and black holes, this was as fashionable as it could get. It was the power of black. Unfiltered.
In an instant when the model walked past me, I saw Prince's face on the back of her dress. In 1983, when he was recording the song "purple rain" he had said they were making history that night and hinted that if they were going to record something, they must make sure they were as badass as one can be...Rajesh Pratap's collection was a tribute to that badass spirit on the third night of the fashion week in the capital. I'd take the liberty of calling it "untitled", too. Like the artworks of many abstractionists. But then, that's just me.
The woman next to me who had dyed her hair blonde shouted the lyrics, clapped and maybe she could have danced to the music that we all swayed to perhaps because it was so "badass" but for the announcement that was made before the show started and went like this "out of respect for the designer, please..."
I know that it was that Beck song that played when I spotted Prince on the dress in black and white and I almost smiled. In the song "I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me..." there's a line "you can't write if you can't relate"... all I can say is I saw black hole jumpers. I, for one, want to be one. Of course Beck famously denied the validity of the song but many say it was a parody of Generation X's slacker culture, about video gamed out beings. It is a clever take on the times we live in. "Know what I'm sayin'..." Beck's chorus went.
So, here was the reclusive mountain climber designer who is mysterious and shy like Prince although the singer made history with his exhibitionism and his prolific output, trying to make the statement that "fashion is fun"... and yet there were these metaphors and if you listened to the songs, you'd know he meant more than just what the sartorial reviews are about. And it was. And it is how it should be.
Then came Jimi Hendrix's face. The musician who was "artistically frustrated" who loved music and could never leave. I remembered a conversation one night when he spoke of the mountains, of doing things he never did when he was younger.
It would be reductive to just say Rajesh Pratap's famous tags of being a minimalist, an investigative designer, who once named his collection "medicine is the best laughter" in 2015 with the set resembling a hospital and reminiscent of Thom Browne's presentation, and his innovations with textiles and crafts like Ikat are just parts of the story. His satire, too. Those are about fashion. The usual reviews of this and that and cuts and trends and forecasts. That's business. Perhaps that's rigour of the craft of fashion journalism. But then, this isn't about fashion. It is about metaphors and storytelling.
The ambivalent designer, perhaps among the few who have stayed relevant over the years, says he is an outsider in fashion.
Any affair with fashion is a fairytale. And those who know it, know that Hendrix put down his guitar at a concert saying it was not right - the music.
There is an end of a beginning. And Pratap isn't trying to be a savior or an artist although in his own way, he is both and more.
"There's no sign of weakness in me
Do I compel you like you compel me?
And nothing stays the same
And no one said it would..."
This one by alternative band Madrugada played as the models walked the runway. And in a way, it said it all. Rajesh Pratap is a non-conformist, a designer who has remained committed to creating new things and a man who must go to the solace of the mountains and watch the space. Space watchers are of a different kind.
All these songs and all these men and women and among them, Nina Simone, the rebellious singer, who said that once it was about pursuing excellence in classical music and later it was about freedom. She also said there was no excuse for young people not knowing who the heroes or heroines are or were.
Rajesh Pratap has been around for many years. And fashion for him is that excitement of creating something new everyday. That's all he has ever said to me. The rest has been about mountains, life and freedom.
Fashion is many things. It is subjective. I have been accused of having my favorites. But then, I like black and I want to be a black hole jumper dressed in suspended steel and
in that delicate looking armour, I want to stand in purple rain. I don't owe anybody an explanation for that. I like the metaphorical ways of Mr. Minimalist. That night I returned to my apartment at 3am and listened to Prince's "Purple Rain" once again.
That face, that dress on which the face was imprinted and those lyrics:
"You say you want a leader
But you can't seem to make up your mind
I think you better close it
And let me guide you to the purple rain..."
That's how you do fashion. With metaphors and subtexts.