Ritul Rai: From Agar to Avant-Garde

There exists a garment that captures starlight in its fibres. Made from seaweed extract and careful chemistry, The Last Biobloom by Ritul Rai radiates with phosphorescent veins that trace nature's hidden pathways - a wearable celebration of how life transforms rather than simply ends.

Ritul Rai's creation begins with an unexpected revelation: decay is just another form of beauty. While others focus on the perfect rose in full bloom, Rai discovered fascination in the moment petals become translucent, when cellular structure reveals itself as luminous geometry. Her laser engravings capture this delicate architecture - the intricate networks that emerge when leaves become windows to their own inner light.

The Last Biobloom by Ritul Rai. Photo: Dronika Bhandari.

The material itself shimmers between states. Agar-based bioplastic flows like liquid mercury one moment, holds its shape like crystallised honey the next. Ten different sheets emerged from Rai's kitchen laboratory, each glowing with its own personality forged by subtle variations in temperature and timing. Rather than standardise, she embraced the spectrum - rigid sheets became sculptural elements that catch and hold light, gossamer-thin ones created flowing passages that seem to breathe with their own illumination...

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Photo credits:

Lead Image: The Last Biobloom. Detail of finished bioplastic garment. Photo: Dronika Bhandari.

All other images as credited in photo captions.