Rahul Mishra’s 'Alchemy' Explores The Five Elements At Paris Couture Week 2026

In a few hours, Rahul Mishra will unveil his Spring Summer 2026 couture collection at Paris Haute Couture Week. Titled 'Alchemy,' the collection builds on his long-standing relationship with storytelling, but this season the focus feels more distilled, more studied, and deeply rooted in process.

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Backstage preparations have been intense. Mishra describes the past few days as a blur of final fittings and coordination between Paris and India. “The last few days have been very exciting because all the preparation comes together,” he says. “Almost like an entire village has been working in India as well as in Paris for this collection. Everybody is working, and that creates a very beautiful energy. The clothes are being moved to the final runway stage as we speak.” 

Amid an intensely hectic schedule, Mishra carved out a few moments to speak with us — a generous pause that underscored both his gratitude and his palpable excitement to finally share the collection with the world.

That collective effort, he believes, shows in the clothes. “From the way the stylists and some of the journalists reacted when they saw the pieces, it appears to be our best work so far,” he adds, clearly excited but measured.

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The starting point for 'Alchemy' comes from the five elements of nature, or the Panchabuta, a concept drawn from Indian philosophy that speaks about how everything around us, including the human body, is formed. But for Mishra, the idea is not academic. It is personal, shaped by time spent away from the city.

“I recently spent a lot of time in the hills at my new house in Aatman, with my design teams,” he explains. “You start valuing clean air, clean water, good sunlight, and fertile soil. These are very basic things, but they are also the elements that really constitute life.”

His research moved between philosophy and science. Mishra references Carl Sagan’s idea that the elements in our bodies were formed inside collapsing stars. “When you look at it scientifically, it’s not just philosophy. It’s a fact,” he says. “At a quantum level, the human body is almost empty space. And in that tiny fraction of matter, you have earth, water, air, and fire. That’s what gives us physical form.”

Rather than translating these elements through obvious motifs or colours, Mishra pushed the atelier towards something far more complex. “If you do elements in a very literal way, it’s easy,” he says. “You fold fabric to look like water, or choose colours that suggest fire. We went into creating very hyper-real elements through couture itself.”

Every piece is handmade, with embroidery used as the primary medium. “We didn’t want to depend on materials that already behave like liquid or plastic,” he explains. “Everything is created through hand embroidery. That is what makes it special.”

This approach meant treating each element almost as its own collection. “Making this collection was like making five collections together,” Mishra says. “The way you perceive fire is different from how you perceive water or air. But everything should still be understood just by looking at the clothes.”

Certain garments took up to six months to complete. He admits that even after decades of work, some techniques resist easy categorisation. “There’s no name for this embroidery,” he says. “There’s a lot of discovery involved. We’ve done millions of garments, but sometimes you still arrive at something completely new.”

One of Mishra’s favourite pieces explores the idea of space through science. “There’s a garment inspired by the scientific model of a black hole,” he reveals. “The bending of space and time, the funnel-like creation of the universe. It’s based on that idea, and I find it very exciting.”

Elsewhere, the clothes attempt to capture the behaviour of elements rather than their appearance. “Fire always moves upward. Water behaves differently with gravity. Wind flows in a certain way,” he explains. “You start studying the anatomy of these things. Even a child should be able to look at a garment and feel what element it represents, without explanation.”

Millinery for the show has been developed in collaboration with Stephen Jones, bringing another layer of couture credibility to the presentation. Mishra speaks warmly about the exchange, noting how closely Jones engaged with the embroidery and construction. “What he appreciated was that whatever we want to create, the medium stays true to couture,” Mishra says. “We always start from a plain canvas and build everything from zero.”

Jewellery appears sparingly within the narrative, crafted by Tanishq, and integrated as part of the larger story rather than as ornamentation.

When asked what he hopes the audience takes away from Alchemy, Mishra avoids grand statements. “There’s so much negativity in the world right now,” he says. “News travels so fast, and most of it is bad. If people can look at this spiritually and remind themselves that we are part of something much larger, that’s enough.”

For him, the purpose of couture remains simple. “We feel good creating what we create,” he says. “If it excites people, if it moves them a little, that’s good enough. It’s about valuing craftsmanship, valuing the process of creation.”

As 'Alchemy' prepares to take the Paris runway, the collection stands as a study in patience, labour, and attention. And we are definitely excited to watch it! 

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