For a designer to headline amongst the top tier of fashion’s big names in a short span of five years, a badge of validation from Savile Row’s highly skilled streets and the legendary fashion school Central Saint Martins, will definitely guarantee a spot in the upper echelons. But for the winner of the fourth edition of ‘NEXA presents The Spotlight’, the journey began before the formal treatment of buttons on the right and left, side seams, and pattern making became part of Bloni founder Akshat Bansal’s repertoire.
It’s a pleasant dichotomy that with Bloni, Bansal has established a smart streetwear persona, complete with reflective gear and tactile textiles, an overall edgy and deconstructed brand language, that runs parallel to his background of traditional savoire-faire, the Savile Row apprenticeship he did while in London, and even before that, his stint at the master ateliers of couture maestro Tarun Tahiliani. Bansal phrases his circumstances as, “learning how to walk before I run.” Even so, his brand is future forward.
To prove his mettle, Hisar-born Bansal, the son of a thriving sari store owner, left to study design at NIFT, charting his way from there to support the heritage-reviving design framework at Tarun Tahiliani’s— all while planning his own debut into the realm of fashion with Bloni. “I love being put in an uncomfortable space, with new things and I really pressurise myself to set the bar higher and nail my own goals. I wanted to get that exposure and not be the small-town boy that I am, and cultivate from my past and take it to the future because navigating a brighter future comes from knowing who you are already,” reveals Bansal.
In 2017, when Bansal set up Bloni (derived from combining his pet name and the first letter of his last name), he was one of the first to introduce experimental textiles like marine plastic, and also entered the market as a gender agnostic label, long before it became a woke concept for brands and designers. It was a culmination of all his diverse and fantastically contrasting experiences in the design space— picking up concepts like abstraction from his time at CSM, and the strict description of tailoring at Savile Row.“There I realised I could be the person who can sew you a pocket and be so good at it that nobody could make it better than me. That feeling of discipline and precision is something that I took from there. I really thought that if I want to be gender neutral, with size-agnostic clothing, I need to understand how fabrics and tailoring can really be an integration of each other, or how a crotch can be a crotch for two genders and not one gender,” explains Bansal.
A reflection of his skills is clearly embedded within his cyber-friendly and futuristic trench coats, chain mail iterations and trousers. Reflective trousers will have Savile Row waistbands, and blazers come with perfectly fitted arm holes. And as abstract and risqué the designs get, the more Bansal zeroes in on working with materials that don’t hinder his vision but support his explorations with fabrics that preserve a sense of utility. In other words, as extreme as the designs get, the ease of wearability remains integral.
The big question when it comes to the utility of his clothing is whether the Indian market is open to exploring and experimenting, at a time when paired back basics, and going simpler has been on the minds of all designers and buyers. “Honestly speaking, if I make something simple and wearable, it doesn't work. At Bloni, only experimental pieces are something that’s eccentric really works,” confesses Bansal. The designer’s signature has become the sole reason buyers flock to Bloni. It's for the brand's unusually comfortable and one-of-a-kind pieces.
His first collection that feature his now trademark tie-dye element was a result of a trip to Himachal's mountain scape, even before the brand became a fully realised concept. At that point, Bansal's main focus was putting his ideas into clothing rather than formalising his fledgling idea of a brand. There was a rawness to his monochrome pieces that came from a space of passion and creation rather than a calculated chess-board move towards establishing his footprint. “I came back not with the agenda of becoming a fashion designer. I just wanted to make clothes,” remembers Bansal of his trip that inspired his first collection at Bloni.
For the designer, creating his clothing came before the business side of things. “I never planned the brand, I just knew the name. My cultural shift and the whole scenario of what I want to be as a designer is an ongoing story. I've always felt that as a fashion designer, if you don't have a point of view, you shouldn't be a fashion designer, because there are a lot of clothes for the next ten decades, if everybody shuts down, there's enough clothing pre-existing on this planet. So what's the point of making what you're making? When I came in, i was questioning why I had to do things a certain way. They asked me if its going to be a menswear collection or womenswear collection, I didn't want to listen to these things, I just wanted to make clothes,” confesses Bansal.
Surprisingly, while Bloni’s designs are inclusive of all the elements that today’s fashion community holds as an emblem, or a certification of design ethics, like gender inclusivity and sustainability— ticking these boxes were not on the agenda for Bansal. “It was never a pitching skill, that a client would come to me and I would sell it as something good for the world. The product has to eventually talk on its own. Moving towards the future of Bloni, I feel like tech is the important part. We're talking about Metaverse, we're talking about the future of fashion in different realms existing on the planet earth.” His new collections are based on a canvas of tech-driven textiles, heat-sensitive materials that switch colours with the intermixing of lights and temperatures.
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For his latest collection that secured Bloni’s win at ‘NEXA presents The Spotlight’, Bansal picked up on various themes of emotions and its translation to fashion. Concepts such as “neo narcissism”, “separation liberty” and “constructive lethargy”, inform his clothes that will make their first solo debut on the runway at the FDCI X Lakmé Fashion Week between 12th to 16th October 2022. The six emotions that Bansal worked on are in some manner, a byproduct of his findings during the pandemic, the new realms of digital that fashion is moving into, and how it eventually impacts the business of clothing.
“When it comes to ‘separation liberty’, I am making a garment that can turn into two. A trouser becomes shorts and shorts become a trouser. So, the idea is that the garments are dissected, and the wearer can wear them in different ways,” he explains. The lineup will also see kimonos that cocoon the wearer, wrapping around the body, which comes under his theme of neo-narcissism, translating the idea of protecting the body into materials like rubber that will not get weathered down easily. Of fifty silhouettes that distil emotions, Bloni’s direction takes silhouettes that analyse and execute these underground, some spiritual and futuristic emotions that are fleshed out into beautifully constructed garments.
With the fourth edition of the judging panel, the platform has helped support and champion emerging talent who hold the promise of being the next big name in the Indian market for years to come. “‘NEXA presents The Spotlight’ is a true reflection of partnership and commitment that NEXA and FDCI X Lakme Fashion Week have towards nurturing upcoming talent and the creation of new. The design presentation and show concept of Akshat Bansal’s label Bloni has been exceptional in terms of thought process, creation, and execution and he has rightfully emerged as the winning designer for the fourth edition of ‘NEXA presents The Spotlight’. His work explores the theme labyrinth in the most innovative way. The intricacy of design brings out the hidden layers of creativity and innovation in an effortless and inspiring way. Just like, we at NEXA, strive to inspire through the creation of new,” comments Shashank Srivastava, the senior executive director of marketing sales, at Maruti Suzuki India Limited.
Completing almost five years in the industry, Bloni has elbowed its way to the frontline as a promising label that not only caters to the wants of people but also contributes to a new standard bar that Indian talent can adhere to. This spotlight on his craft is a stepping stone for the designer to establish his ground even further into the landscape, which comes as a boon to upcoming designers wanting to move beyond the realm of couture that is so ingrained into the fabric of India, and have the freedom to experiment. “With each edition of ‘NEXA presents The Spotlight,’ we are given the opportunity to deliberate and reflect not only over the progression of fashion in the country but also the evolution of the platform and the incredible talent in the industry to spotlight,” says Jaspreet Chandok, head of RISE Fashion and Lifestyle.
Also read:
6 things to look forward to at FDCI X Lakmé Fashion Week 2022
Nexa Digital Couture is the next step in Lakmé Fashion Week’s tech-first evolution
Meet the next generation of designers who are taking India to the global runway
