Plunging into Manish Arora’s psychedelic universe is like peering through a kaleidoscope: Colors and motifs fuse with a garment’s textures, often making it impossible to distinguish what’s what, as this wizard of colors charms the onlooker (rather than the wearer) with his hypnotic combinations.
For spring, the visual impact was galactic — literally — as Arora imagined a woman traveling through outer space, a journey that involves such things as bumping into “hallucinatory gods and astronauts floating through kaleidoscopic lunar worlds,” his show notes explained.
Yet not all was hypothetical. Underneath the reflective, pearlescent embroideries, admirably executed, and 3-D rose blooms appliquéd on top of their mirror images to create a “double vision” effect, Arora’s silhouettes showed surprising restraint. Cycling shorts, bomber jackets and roomy sweatshirts, sometimes elongated to form dresses, no doubt would come in handy while traipsing through space.
To round out his cosmic vision, the designer turned his attention to accessories, creating wildly colorful sun caps from scarves and embroidering backpacks with the same prismatic Plexiglass pieces he used to fashion his otherworldly jewelry.