FDCI India Couture Week 2025— Sara Ali Khan on being the showstopper for the show: 'Glad I got to wear something that...'

The human imagination is the seedbed of everything we know to be beautiful it created the Mona Lisa’s smile and recreates its mystery anew with each viewing; it dreamt up stories of flying carpets long before airplanes took to the skies; it lets us step into another’s world and feel what they feel, making compassion possible. Imagination can be wild, untamed, unpredictable and yet, from its chaos come masterpieces.

It is this very wildness, the sheer force of fantasy, memory, and the power of possibility that finds its fullest expression in Aisha Rao’s latest collection. Wild at Heart is a love letter to nature in all its untamed glory; a maximalist ode to the wilderness, wrapped in metallics, softened with whimsy, and structured with intention. It is a sanctuary imagined, a moment suspended between memory and fantasy, a riot of flora that knows no bounds.

At its core, Wild at Heart is an invitation: to live a little louder, to wear your joy like second skin, and to turn everyday moments into visual poetry. The collection borrows from the lush vocabulary of the natural world - banana leaves, lotus blooms, palms kissed with light filtered through the lens of Aisha Rao’s signature known for its fantasy-driven appliqué and surrealist storytelling.

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Each piece has structure and softness, geometry and garden, drapes that flirt with tradition, blazers with a sense of theatre, and patterns that feel like the dream you didn’t want to wake up from. The silhouettes are sharp but soft. The textures, richer than ever before. Think hand-drawn florals set against architectural tailoring. Delicate embroidery meeting exaggerated forms. Appliqué that moves like memory. And underneath it all, a quiet strength.

Showstopper, Sara Ali Khan said, “I’ve always been drawn to pieces that tell a story, and this look really does that for me. I’m wearing the XX lehenga with XX embroidery by Aisha, and what I love about it is how light and effortless it feels. Every detail is so thoughtfully done… It’s playful, graceful, and beautifully made. I’m so glad I get to wear something that feels so me today. Thanks, Aisha.”

Couturier, Aisha Rao, said, “Presenting our debut couture collection at India Couture Week has been nothing short of a dream. Wild at Heart is deeply personal, an expression of fantasy, freedom, and everything we love about maximalism. We’re incredibly grateful for the platform, for the collaborators who believed in the vision, and for the chance to reimagine bridal and occasion wear on such a grand, storied stage.”

The show space was imagined in collaboration with Kohler, who brought its signature colours - Teakberry, Lush Green and Brushed Rose Gold into the collection. Towering gold palms rose against sculptural forms in these rich hues, a deliberate collision of tropical abandon and slow luxury. It was indoor meets outdoor. Earth meets imagination. A reminder that contrast is not chaos, it’s character.

In a special collaboration for the show, Aisha Rao partnered with SHREE Jewellers to create an exclusive capsule of fine jewellery that extended the collection’s fantastical spirit. Delicate yet dramatic, the pieces featured a thoughtful interplay of diamonds, rose cuts, baguettes, and briolettes, all infused with colour in keeping with Aisha’s signature palette. This was jewellery imagined not as accessory, but as narrative, sculptural forms and heritage echoes that mirrored the collection’s blend of maximalism and meaning.