Pankaj and Nidhi wow the crowds on day three of Amazon India Fashion Week 2015

Pantsuits and neutral colours prove to be a winning combination for husband-and-wife designers.

An outfit by Indian designers Pankaj and Nidhi on the catwalk during day three of Amazon India Fashion Week Fall-Winter 2015 in New Delhi, India. Harish Tyagi / EPA

When a fashion show wins a standing ovation and the audience walks out murmuring “wow”, “fabulous” and “stunning”, one could presume a designer requires no more validation. Critics, the fashion world and potential buyers can all, potentially, go take a hike –the public has decided.

But presumptions aside, designer duo Pankaj and Nidhi, who closed day three of Amazon India Fashion Week 2015 in New Delhi, are not playing renegade just yet. And if their latest collection is anything to go by, their eyes are set on a global horizon, where the pantsuit, in the most ethereal neutrals, has permanently found a home.

On the Pankaj and Nidhi ramp on March 27, the outfit reigned supreme. Titled “Rouge Minerale” the designers juxtaposed the feminine of the “rouge” – through a palette of what they call rubicund reds and arctic pink, along with carbon greys, sapphire blues and burnt sienna – with structures that echoed the masculinity of “minerals”.

Later, Pankaj said that the colours were really inspired by Indian masala and camomile chai.

What the husband-and-wife duo were drawing attention to was the “use of Indian crafts in a way that that can be worn everywhere, from Montreal to Mumbai and Morocco”, says Pankaj.

It is this modern interpretation that Vinod Nair, group fashion editor of the Hindustan Times, says will help them break into the “the world market, with western silhouettes, but treatments of the surface one sees in Indian bridal wear.” All in the right proportions, and never over the top.

With an autumn/winter 2015 collection that merged ying and yang perfectly to create a gender ambiguity, many in the audience – especially those such as photographer Anushka Nadia Menon, whose own individualistic style tends towards the same ambiguity – instantly loved the mix of “soft, feminine colours and androgynous cuts”.

“Baby pinks and pastels in such structured clothing, and the pantsuit made new,” said the photographer, observing that: “The little embellishing, and cuts in unusual placings both in the arms and back, was interesting, super international, and all very wearable.”

The show opened on a ramp decorated with piles of what looked like black minerals and rocks (which turned out to be rock salt). The models shone headlamps straight into the audiences eyes as they came down. Slowly, skirts and dresses met structured pantsuits with the recurring drama of capes, bejewelled bolero jackets and what was meant to be miner’s glasses.

Fabrics added weight, in thick double jersey, double neoprene, wool, even worsted wool, and fully threaded embroidery-covered fabric.

The storyboard that began with Pankaj’s fascination for gemstones, the mining of them and the journey they go through from rough to brilliance, informed their collection, but with a shattered interpretation.

Pankaj & Nidhi’s signature cutwork appliqué, which many mistake for being laser-cut but is actually painstakingly hand cut, interspersed with swirling trompe l’oeil embroideries and their love for 3D embroidery, all came together to form layers of geometric intricacy on otherwise undeviated silhouettes.

In a first for the designers, gemstones appeared across the collection, as digital prints of geometrics marrying roses chopped and sculpted away, and even as conventional gem patterns, made less bling.

“We infused our appliqué with crystalline elements, using a ruby-red glass-sea texture, and even matt. Icy arctic pinks had a more subdued shine, and infused with appliqué, became even more interesting”, Pankaj said.

The designers wanted a feeling of everything – their stone, prints and collection – having been packed into a jar and swirled around to break and shatter, then reassembled to form a broken mosaic-like pattern.

“We took away the bling and made the stones sophisticated. Choosing very flat stones, we developed the shape of each stone. Instead of normal squares or rounds, we used hexagonals and trapezoids. Asymmetric shapes, in the right colours, on very specialised fabrics,” added the designer.

Pleasantly surprised with their lack of darker hues for the winter, Nair called the very complicated surface-treatment embroidery outstanding, and extremely feminine.

For Aishwarya Subramanyam, the editor of Elle India, it was the "splatter of crystal shards, especially on jackets" that sparked love at first sight, while adding that the pinks and greys all felt very modern.