Varun Chakkilam’s latest couture collection Celestine travels to Bengaluru this September, presented by multi-designer store Armadio as part of an immersive fashion showcase titled A Garden of Festivities.
Scheduled for September 12 at Armadio in Sadashivnagar, the showcase brings the designer’s couture into a setting conceived around the collection rather than presenting it through the conventional format of a fashion show. The store will transform into an evocative garden of embroidered blooms, textures and festive details, creating a backdrop for guests to discover Celestine at close quarters and interact with the designer.
At the centre of it all is a collection that looks skywards for inspiration.
Celestine draws from moonlit skies, distant constellations and the changing play of light and shadow. The romanticism of the night sky translates into fluid silhouettes sitting alongside more sculpted forms, embellished with embroidery, crystals, pearls and reflective details intended to evoke stardust.
Its colour story moves through moonlit ivory and champagne before deepening into celestial silver, midnight blue and jewel tones. The result is occasion wear that embraces grandeur without allowing embellishment alone to define it.
The collection is also an extension of a design vocabulary Chakkilam has developed around the meeting point of Indian craftsmanship and contemporary couture.
Indian textiles, jewellery, embroidery and artisanal traditions remain important to his work, but they are rarely employed as straightforward reproductions of the past. Instead, the designer draws upon a much wider visual vocabulary — architecture, nature, mythology, textiles and traditional techniques — and distils these references into silhouettes that speak to the present.
That negotiation between opposites is central to the Varun Chakkilam aesthetic: craft and modernity, detail and restraint, tradition and individuality.
It is particularly visible in Celestine, where intricate surface work coexists with a contemporary approach to form. The clothes retain the sense of ceremony associated with Indian festive and occasion wear while attempting to move beyond rigid interpretations of what traditional couture should look like.
At its emotional core, Celestine imagines the woman wearing it as someone who carries her own light — confident, graceful and unapologetically radiant. The celestial references, therefore, are not merely decorative. They become a metaphor running through the collection.
For Armadio, the presentation is equally about creating a different way of encountering designer fashion.
Positioned as a multi-designer destination for Indian fashion and contemporary luxury, the Bengaluru store brings together established and distinctive design voices in a more intimate retail environment. With A Garden of Festivities, that philosophy extends into experiential fashion, where the collection, its inspiration and the space in which it is presented become part of the same narrative.
Rather than viewing the garments primarily from a runway distance, guests will be able to examine Celestine’s embroidery, textures and detailing up close. The evening concludes with a meet-and-greet with Varun Chakkilam, allowing invited guests to hear more about the ideas and craftsmanship behind the collection.
As India moves into the festive and wedding season, the showcase also arrives at a moment when occasion wear is increasingly being shaped by a customer who wants the richness of Indian craft without necessarily being bound by conventional silhouettes.
Celestine appears to inhabit precisely that space — looking to the stars for its poetry, to Indian craftsmanship for its substance and to contemporary couture for its form.
A Garden of Festivities featuring Varun Chakkilam’s Celestine will be held on September 12, 2026, at Armadio, Sadashivnagar, Bengaluru.
