A love letter to Kashmir, couture and the timeless soul of Rohit Bal

Time of India

4 days ago

Rohit Bal Couture's 'KASH-GUL' at Hyundai India Couture Week 2025 was a poignant tribute to the late designer. The collection, a fusion of Kashir aesthetics and floral motifs, showcased Bal's signature style through ivory, black, and wine hues on Chanderi, Matka silk, and velvet. Arjun Rampal's presence amplified the emotional resonance, celebrating Bal's enduring legacy.
It wasn't just another couture show. It wasn't even just fashion. It was memory, magic, melancholy, and celebration all woven into one unforgettable evening. When
Rohit Bal
Couture presented 'KASH-GUL' at Hyundai India Couture Week 2025, time paused and in that stillness, we felt Rohit.
From the moment the lights dimmed, one could sense it in the air: this was sacred ground. A world where fabric became poetry, silhouettes whispered nostalgia, and craft stood still in reverence. The runway became a gulistan, a mythical garden, where every look was a bloom plucked from the mind of a man who changed the language of Indian couture forever.
And then,
Arjun Rampal
walked out. Not as a showstopper, but as a memory come alive.
A tribute. A brother. The bond between them, etched over decades of muses, madness, and magic, could be felt in every step he took. It didn't feel like a finale. It felt like a beginning. Like Rohit never left.
The name 'KASH-GUL' a tender fusion of Kashmir and Gul (flower) was a hint at what was to come: a collection that felt like a love letter to Bal's eternal muse. The Valley, with its haunting beauty, snow-dusted silence, and wild flowers dancing in alpine meadows, was stitched into every thread.
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The colours were Rohit's signature lullaby, ivory, black, deep wine, romantic but restrained, like the palette of someone who has nothing to prove. There was Chanderi, Matka silk, and Velvet but never shouting, always sighing. The embroidery was delicate, respectful. As if the artisans were saying, 'We're still here. He taught us well.'
There was no forced drama. No over-the-top theatrics. Just soul. Quiet, graceful, deeply intentional fashion that made one feel something.
The kind of fashion that doesn't just want to be worn, it wants to be remembered.
'Every stitch has a memory. Every silhouette carries a sense of home,' shared Fraze Tasnim, Creative Director of Rohit Bal Couture. And one could see exactly what he meant. This wasn't about a 'comeback' or 'relaunch'. This was a conversation between the past and present. Between Rohit and all of us who miss him.
What made it even more beautiful was the sense of intimacy.
It didn't feel like a large-scale production. It felt like sitting inside the warmth of someone's home in the valley, wrapped in pashmina, sipping kahwa, while stories of love, art, and longing were told through clothes.
The people in the room remembered that white sherwani, those lotus motifs, his obsession with symmetry, the roses, the shikargahs, the gold thread dancing against ivory. They remembered how Rohit made fashion feel like fine art.
How he gave Indian couture a new vocabulary - equal parts romantic, wild, regal, and deeply personal. KASH-GUL didn't try to reimagine that legacy. It just carried it. With tenderness. With restraint.
With love.
And when the models walked their final turn, and the lights glowed soft gold, there was silence in the room, not the awkward kind, but the full-bodied kind. The kind that follows something precious. Something sacred.
In that moment, it was clear: Rohit never left. His voice is still here, in the folds of the fabric, the cadence of the craft, the weight of the velvet, the shadow of a flower, and in the hearts of those who carry his legacy forward.
It wasn't just a couture collection. It was a garden of memories, blooming with elegance, legacy, and love. And somewhere, in that eternal garden, the master smiled.