Prize(s) Winners in Fashion Design Lighting / Visitor Experience & Museum Exhibition
Lighting Design/Product Company Studio ZNA
Lead Designers Zerlina Hughes
Other Designer's names Saumya Monga
Architecture Company Rooshad Shroff
Interior Design Company Patrick Kinmoth
Client Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Center, Mumbai
Photo Credits Pictures courtesy: ‘India in Fashion’ at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Mumbai
Other Credits Curated by: Hamish Bowles, Associate Lighting Designer: Eby Vincent Matthew
Completion Date 31/03/2023
Project Location Mumbai, India
Entry DescriptionIndia in Fashion: The Impact of Indian Dress and Textiles on the Fashionable Imagination explores the layered impact that traditional Indian dress, textiles and craft have had on the international fashion sensibility since the 18th century. The first exhibition of its kind in India, it showcases India’s textile traditions uncovering their inspiration to royal courts and European haute couture like Dior, Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent.
The exhibition design is a sequence of rooms constructed as whimsical buildings inspired by India’s rich architectural traditions through the centuries which frame the clothes. Each section has a bespoke lighting approach both at high and low level with meticulous detailing into setworks.
The visitor enters the space through arches that are lit expressionistically, creating shadows as if sunlight was streaming through the architecture. In Chintz luminous volumes for showcases wee designed with diffusely lit top and bottom to render form and detail; with setwork coves as if plinths floating above water. The visitor then makes a journey through the European fashion houses, meeting a dynamic and layered play of light, projection and shadow. Through sunlit gold mesh step wells, dusk cycloramas and rhythmically lit promenades; the visitor enters the finale of Indian designers; each in bespoke lit pods and integrated beamshapers for key light.
Sustainability ApproachAt high level DMX programmable LED theatrical fittings were used to cater to the large scale of the exhibition hall itself. At low level LED mini spotlights and LED linear lights we used within showcases and setworks, all dimmable to ensure strict conservation requirements are always maintained. Working with the exhibition designers the Studio produced a sophisticated choreography of luminosity, where the amazing objects are given primary focus, but also where the visitor is very much part of the beautiful imagined world as they travel through the exhibition.
This was achieved while ensuring all fittings were locally sourced to minimise carbon footprint and at the same time that all are dimmable LEDs ensuring minimal energy consumption. All fixtures specification is mindful of future re-use by the venue providing robust and all rounder high level theatrical fittings.
