Rahul Mishra entitled his breathtaking Spring/Summer 2025 Couture collection, “The Pale Blue Dot,” and I have to talk about its debut at Paris Couture Week. Mishra drew inspiration from his reflections as both a father and a son, dealing with the loss of his dad and grappling with global issues, such as climate change, pollution, and the fragility of our planet. The title of the collection came from the book by the same name, written by American astronomer Carl Sagan, where he posed the question, what if our cities became dark and lifeless places?
“It’s a tough narrative to tackle—Earth, life, sustainability, all these issues,” Mishra admitted. “It’s a struggle to convey such a message through fashion. You could write a poem or an essay, that’s easier. But it was crucial for us to truly look at it through this lens.”
The show opened with a dramatic black cape made of shimmering silver squares, a striking look modeled by Coco Rocha. Mishra evoked the image of a bird’s-eye view of a city landscape, a theme that was continued throughout the collection. Mishra then incorporated shimmering silver cityscapes with touches of green, symbolizing nature reclaiming urban spaces.
In another segment, round mirrors adorned dresses, and one piece featured circles with embroidered world monuments, with plants surrounding the structures. The model wearing this piece had her head framed by a circle, surrounded by the words, “Objects in this mirror are closer than they appear.” To represent scavenger birds, Mishra designed garments with bird motifs appearing to take flight, one of which looped around the front of a black bodysuit. As his message grew increasingly utopian, gold accents also increasingly appeared in the collection.
While Mishra may be right about his couture collection being hard to tackle, I believe that he executed the concept efficiently. The geometric and 3D structures in most of the collection allowed for interesting variation between the fabric and overall design. I have to say that my top three looks from Mishra’s collection would have to be Look 11, Look 28, and Look 32.
While I do have thoughts on how the garments covered in mirrors could have been less literal, I do really like the direction he went with it. Personally, I interpreted “The Pale Blue Dot” as a lead to a path for hope and maybe even redemption for the planet because the collection leads with the darker elements slowly moving towards the reflective and gold color scheme showcasing a passage through time.
Words by Jade Pettyjohn
Graphic by Aubrey Lauer