Nitanshi Goel is building a fashion week presence as quickly as her film career. On Thursday, the Laapataa Ladies actor closed designer Suneet Varma’s “Kashi” showcase at Lakme Fashion Week in Delhi, walking at Taj Palace Hotel as the collection’s showstopper.
The collection is an archive story as much as a new-season story. Around 32 years ago, Varma visited Varanasi to source textiles and created a cape with a Banaras tree-of-life motif. For Kashi, he returned to that same artwork, expanded it into a Kashi landscape and reworked it for contemporary silhouettes.
Old Banaras, new shapes
The line mixes traditional craft with what Varma calls contemporary glamour. It spanned ready-to-wear skirts, draped saris, tops, trousers, dhoti skirts, jackets and corset tops. The designer, a presence in Indian fashion for over three decades, said the pieces are meant to be worn globally rather than only at festive or traditional moments.
“For me, it is very nostalgic and beautiful,” he told reporters after the show. “It goes back to the tree of life, it goes back to spirituality, but I also wanted to make it modern.”
The showstopper moment
Nitanshi’s closing look was a wine-coloured lehenga with an off-shoulder draped top and a mermaid-tail skirt covered in heavy sequin work. It read as red-carpet modern, but the Banaras references tied it back to the collection’s Varanasi starting point.
She told the press she saw Varma’s vision and knew she would “feel pretty tonight,” adding that she was “super grateful” for the collection. This is the kind of role fashion week regularly gives to performers who have just found a broad audience: a recognisable face for the designer, and a different way for the actor to be seen.
Why Kashi matters
For the LFW audience, Kashi is a useful example of how heritage Indian craft can become a global design language. Instead of treating the tree-of-life motif as a decorative border, Varma made it the central narrative and then translated that narrative into everyday pieces like corset tops and dhoti skirts.
Varma has spent more than three decades in Indian fashion, so Kashi reads as a homecoming rather than a reinvention. The idea is simple: take an old artwork that already has emotional pull, then put it on pieces that make sense in a modern wardrobe.
What to keep on your radar
- Kashi is anchored by the tree-of-life cape Varma first made after a Varanasi sourcing trip around 32 years ago.
- The collection includes draped saris, dhoti skirts, trousers, corset tops and jackets, cut for global wear.
- Nitanshi Goel closed the show in a sequinned wine lehenga with a mermaid-tail skirt.
- Lakme Fashion Week x FDCI wraps up on Sunday with Amit Aggarwal’s AM.IT finale.
If you missed the show, watch the LFW recaps for the tree-of-life cape and the Kashi landscape pieces; they show how the old Banaras artwork was re-cut for 2026.
Source: Hindustan Times
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