In that spot now stands Aatman, the hill house and labour of love of Rahul and his wife, Divya Bhatt Mishra. Over the past few years, Rahul has carved out precious time from a packed calendar to head to the mountains and build the house. Roping in his nephew, Gopalan Awasthi—who was studying civil engineering—along with a legion of contractors, suppliers and artisans, he spent months, especially during the pandemic, reading up on architecture and construction. “Most of us were learning how to bake bread during the pandemic. Rahul was learning how to build houses,” laughs Divya, also the cofounder and CEO of the Rahul Mishra label.
Rahul has always been something of an architect, using textiles, threads and needles as building blocks for his couture. Buildings and cities become mines of inspiration: skyscrapers rise out of three dimensional embroidered bodices and cascade down the sleeves, and cities come alive on the length of a gown. “I wanted to build the house the way I build a collection,” he says. That meant finding a balance of style and sustainable design, celebrating handmade crafts, and building an energy-efficient, self-sufficient house that is conscious of weather and in harmony with the local topography.