The act of breaking free is always a personal journey. For me, it was literally about reclaiming my identity and image as a culturally muslim south indian woman who is not a believer, and wearing clothes that represent that version of me accurately, as well as writing stories that reflect it as well. For a designer like Madhu Kumari, a fashion graduate from India (NIFT, Class of 2023) who was born and brought up in Delhi, her roots from Bihar deeply informed her work. Through her garments, she studies and reflects on her relationship with craft, memory, and emotional storytelling. Her senior project began as her journey in breaking free, resulting in the collection titled ‘Veil of Reverie’.
According to Madhu Kumari, the collection is “an exploration of emotional repression, internal chaos, and the quiet act of breaking free. I wanted to visualise what it feels like to hold everything in, then slowly unravel and move toward self-liberation. The silhouettes reflect that distortion and transition with structured layering, cocoon-like volumes, and moments of softness breaking through.” Drawing from her roots, she worked with textiles sourced from local artisans in Bihar, and featured “wild silks to anchor the collection in a cultural and tactile truth.” This was an intentional decision made by the designer, to not just express a mood, but rather to capture history, memory and resistance through her designs.
Set in a seemingly otherworldly realm, the clothes crafted by Madhu Kumari in this collection have been stunningly photographed by photographer Allen (@elim_152), featuring the Inega represented model Maongka (__maongka__). Navigating through her collection and campaign in multiple stages, much like how processing human emotions works, she takes the audience through a journey. The term audience is more befitting when talking about this collection, and not customers, because her work is not just meant to be worn, but rather to be witnessed as well. According to the designer,
“Inspired by my nightmare where my negative emotions had taken the shape of a monstrous lion attacking me, I present this collection as the different stages of emotional distress that people experience and overcome in a surreal landscape. Each look progresses onto the next, finally ending with liberation from the negative feelings.”Madhu Kumari, Designer, Veil of Reverie
The aforementioned stages are classified by her as being Engulfed, Wounded, and Unfolding. Through gauzy, sheer fabrics that mimic a shroud, the Engulfed stage of design draws one in. The choice of colours is muted and dark. As if looking at a monster that looms like an imminent danger, something straight out of one’s nightmare. Through the pieces in the next segment - ‘Wounded’ - she portrays the shedding of weight, emotional and physical. The usage of 360 meters of pintucks to add texture to the primary look of this segment is a great example of how Madhu Kumari has chosen to delve deep into textural study and construction throughout the collection. There are streaks of colour leaking at this stage, with the off-white with streaks of red setting the stage for the final moment.
In the final segment titled Unfolding, the self-liberation Madhu Kumari spoke about tumbles out in a riot of colours, drapes and construction. As she so eloquently put it, “Unfolding captures the raw moment when repressed emotions rise to the surface. The garments part, revealing fragments of figure-face, fingers, and self. Hair once bound now bursts outward, symbolising distress that can no longer be contained. This marks the tipping point in the emotional journey: a release, a reckoning, a confrontation with what lies within.”
Perhaps it is the fact that the designer is one who chooses to work off-the-beaten path - working through her designs and process through scribbles, swatches and offline research in a digital world - but the graduating collection crafted by designer Madhu Kumari feels truly original, in a world of Insta-similar campaigns and designs. In drawing deep from craft and the personal, Madhu Kumari has created a collection and campaign that tells an evocative story that unfolds in layers, free of the bounds of microtrends and recycled sameness in imagery.
Follow Madhu Kumari here.
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