“It takes a skilled karigar and a lot of patience to hand pleat a textile of varied nature and convert it into an outfit,” says Amit Aggarwal, while explaining how he does knife pleating on garments.
Describing it as a technique that can be used by any creative person, Amit says it totally depends on how someone executes the technique in their collection. “I personally see this technique to take crazier forms that have not been explored before.” This innovative designer, who has a habit of creating trends, grabbed attention of fashionistas when he demonstrated his flair for this technique at the recent Lakme India Fashion Week. He showcased how the un-stitched sari can be modernised with structured silhouettes and the fluid nature of handwoven silk Chanderi and Ikat.
Excerpts:
What fascinated you to use knife pleating ?
We have been using pleating techniques since a long time now in our clothing. It depicts the uniformity and movement in our outfits. This time we played with this technique in various sizes and materials.
What was the challenge this time round?
We were using pleating with saris so it could come out looking very traditional. With the language being so Indian, we wanted to voice the collection with a contemporary styling thus you see pleating done at the sleeves and not use it in lengths in outfits.
Knife pleating is a tedious time consuming process and involves lot of mathematics...
This is a beautiful process and requires accurate calculations for it to fall well or create the right visual effect. We have also been incorporating heat pleating to fasten the process but many a time hand pleating is done if we want to achieve some variation in it.
Explain the technique to create pleat on outfits?
While draping, we were trying to utilise pleating in a way that adds movement in the garment by placing it at different sections of an outfit like the sleeves, the hem or the upper waist.
Have you been inspired by Issey Miyake, who internationalised it in 1980s.
He has definitely explored the technique to a level no one has and has inspired many creatives to take the craft of pleating further and I am no exception to that. A simple technique like that can change the dimension and functionality of an outfit in the most unbelievable ways.
There has been quite a rise of knife pleating at the haute couture this season.
I think its a classic and will keep coming back.
Knife pleating allows garment to expand its shape when moving. Is this not old fashioned?
I do not go by the idea of it being old fashioned. The expansion of a surface when in movement is one factor that got me interested in this particular technique. I believe in reinventing an age old process and how it can be introduced in an outfit made for the modern day woman.
