There is a particular pleasure in getting dressed when the working day is finally done. The shirt can stay, but its company changes. Something metallic enters the picture. Colour gets louder. Clothes begin to answer to the evening ahead. At the Lakmē Fashion Week x FDCI grand finale in New Delhi on 18 October, Amit Aggarwal’s AM:IT explored that shift with On a Day Like Today, a collection interested in what happens when routine loosens its grip.
Presented in collaboration with Lakmē 9to5, the show took its cue from the brand’s “5PM Glam Reset”. It is a familiar fashion-and-beauty proposition: take the working woman from her desk to an evening out. Aggarwal gave it a more particular point of view by drawing on everyday India, finding possibilities for ornament and texture in familiar crafts, domestic objects and gestures.
The setting extended that idea into a lively street scene, with autorickshaws and ice-cream sellers contributing to the atmosphere. Against this backdrop, the collection’s colour and playfulness had a recognisable context. The everyday became a starting point for dressing up, with enough room for humour along the way.
The collection’s most interesting proposition was its treatment of familiarity. Indian references in occasionwear can become shorthand for a prescribed set of motifs and embellishments. Here, Aggarwal described a broader field of inspiration, looking at the objects and gestures that often escape notice.
“With On a Day Like Today, I wanted to draw from the visual language of everyday India, reinterpreting familiar crafts, domestic objects and gestures through unexpected materials, textures and techniques,” the designer said in the show release.
That thinking gives the collection a useful tension. Utility meets ornament; structure makes room for expressive ease. The appeal lies in how those elements might coexist within a wardrobe, allowing a familiar piece to take on a different character through its styling or surroundings.
Four personalities informed the collection: The Clock-In, The Unwinder, The Escapist and The Socialiser. These were conceived as overlapping character studies, which makes sense for a collection about moving between different versions of oneself. An evening rarely requires an entirely new identity, even when it calls for a change of clothes.
Aneet Padda’s closing look made the premise easy to read. A striped shirt was paired with a metallic corset and wide-leg purple trousers, bringing a recognisable daytime reference into a more theatrical arrangement. The shirt supplied familiarity, while the metallic finish and proportions shifted the mood. It was a clear expression of the show’s interest in transformation through combinations.
For a celebration wardrobe, that is the useful takeaway. A festive dinner, a friend’s cocktail party or an evening spent hosting allows for this kind of experimentation: a familiar foundation, an unexpected layer, a stronger dose of colour. Padda’s look offered a styling idea to adapt according to the occasion and one’s appetite for drama.
The beauty collaboration supported the same transition, with Lakmē’s HYA Glam range supplying the accompanying emphasis on glow. Yet the fashion held the more interesting question: how much needs to change before something familiar feels ready for a different setting?
Aggarwal’s answer centred on a shift in expression. As he put it, “the person remains the same” while their energy can evolve. That thought gave AM:IT’s finale its relevance beyond the runway. With festive invitations filling the calendar, there is pleasure in a wardrobe that leaves room to play, and in discovering that the shirt already doing daytime duty might have evening plans of its own.