Supriya Lele Returns to London Fashion Week With a New Attitude
LONDON — Fresh off the plane from New York, where she’s been collaborating with Victoria’s Secret, Supriya Lele is ready for her London comeback.
The designer, who has been absent from the London Fashion Week runways for a few seasons, will show her modern, minimal take on classical Indian sculpture at the Barbican Centre on Monday.
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After a much-needed reboot, the designer, who’s known for her pared-back, feminine aesthetic, is returning with a new approach, and a debut accessories collection.
“The reality of being a young designer is that you’re looking at your accounts every day; answering thousands of emails, and trying to design. I needed a creative pause in order to move forward in my work,” Lele said in an interview at Qrystal Partners, a former pharmacy turned gallery space.
She was there with her curator friend Donald Ryan, who has joined the brand along with Parinaz Mogadassi, who owns Tramps, a gallery with outposts in New York and London.
“I definitely needed the time out, to get a grip on what was going on with my business, and to understand how I could structure it going forward,” she continued.
She’s now working closely with Ryan and Mogadassi, with the three operating like a creative collective.
Lele said that Ryan’s not an artist himself, “but he’s used to working with them and he’s amazing to have around because he’s quite clearheaded and logical.” Mogadassi has also consulted on the upcoming show.
Lele’s last show was in February 2022. Victoria Beckham sat in the front row, while the model Paloma Elsesser walked the runway in a sheer blue top and a brown miniskirt with a detachable large pocket in the front.
For this latest collection, Lele said she took a look back — at her own work and at “Indian gods and goddesses, and classical Indian sculpture,” and is also adding accessories to her offer. She described her mood board for the season as having a “subversive” ’90s fashion feel with lots of Bruce Weber imagery.
“We wanted to take something that looks quite old and special and make it feel really modern and contemporary,” said the designer.
She pointed to a flat, pink handbag with a drape effect, leather straps and a row of gold charms resembling the trishula, or trident, carried by the Hindu god Shiva. The handbag comes in black, blue, navy, beige and white.
Lele has also put much effort into her new leather belts, which have swirling, maze-shaped gold hardware. They can be worn frontward, backward or even as body jewelry.
The designer said the collection, as always, is about versatility, individuality and a degree of discretion.
“It goes right back to my ideas of the sari, the whole notion of concealing, revealing and showing a little bit of belly and back with a wisp of this and that. Gestures are really important to me, rather than an overtly westernized concept of sexy, which is to show everything or to be really out and loud about it,” she said.
The designs are coquettish and come to life in hues ranging from iridescent green, violet and other candy foil colors to a more neutral brown. The colors and textures, as well as the makeup, draw inspiration from the work of artist Jai Chuhan, who staged a solo exhibition this summer at Qrystal Partners.
Fabrics include silk, jersey and Tencel, which is one of her sponsors this season. Lele sourced the leather from Bentley Motors.
Lele said working on the reimagined Victoria’s Secret fashion show brought her vision for this collection into focus and helped her to create what she describes as “elevated and confident” pieces.
Lele speaks proudly of the Victoria’s Secret collaboration, where she produced 11 looks and worked alongside the veteran stylist Camilla Nickerson.
The designer said her shapes and drapes were based on ideas for her own collections — she didn’t try to do something different for Victoria’s Secret. The experience also gave Lele a taste of what it’s like to work with a larger-than-life enterprise.
“Victoria’s Secret is a huge company, and that kind of support was amazing. They can make things happen now — and that was kind of wild,” Lele said, adding, “It would be great to have a brown female creative director, wouldn’t it?”
The 36-year-old designer is Indian-British, and one of the few South Asian designers on the London Fashion Week calendar. Other names include Ashish, designed by Ashish Gupta, and Ahluwalia, whose founder is Priya Ahluwalia.
When Lele entered fashion, she said her intention was to prove there is “so much more to Indian culture than just the Western approach, this very ‘National Geographic’ kind of moment.”
Her minimalist draping, ruching and sheer fabrics have long been met with confusion as to why they were not “more Indian.”
In her elegant and steady voice, she said Indian designs “don’t need to just be paisley prints and bindis.”
The designer said she designs — and her business operates — on three principals: meaning, integrity and purpose. “I approach my work in a very creative way and I’m not just here to churn out tons of product just for no reason,” Lele said.
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