Make-up & hair: Abhijit Chanda Pic by Pabitra Das

The first thing you notice when he opens the door is that the thick kohl which usually rims his eyes is missing. Instead, there’s just a hint of eye-liner. The new toast of the town, fashion designer Kallol Datta has been sick and recuperating at home. But that doesn’t curb his quirky sense of humour or penchant to make unsuspecting people start in surprise at his irreverent statements.

Pointing to a brown-coloured ensemble with finger-like motifs outlined in ivory that’s hanging on a clothes rack, he says: “At the recent fashion week I had to explain these motifs as dismembered fingers. But, in fact, these are dismembered penises.” His new collection from the latest edition of Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) also includes the black-and-white coat with a pattern of mating snails that actor Kareena Kapoor wore as Kallol’s showstopper.

But you don’t bat an eyelid. You’ve seen the motifs Kallol Datta, 28, has become so famous for. Don’t expect daisies and baroque twirls. Sperm? Yes. Toilet signs — some with amputated legs in a stark reference to the horrors unleashed by landmines — yes. Sometimes you need footnotes to understand the sensibilities of his signature label, Kallol Datta 1955. For, he’s a designer who puts a lot of thought into every snip and cut.

As a designer — and he made his debut on fashion week ramps a mere five years ago — Kallol hasn’t just

survived, but thrived. His client list already includes Bollywood divas Sonam Kapoor and Sameera Reddy, singer-songwriter Sona Mohapatra and Fern Mallis who is considered the creator of New York Fashion Week.

Kallol’s first solo art exhibition, Kallolculture, showcased the link between art and fashion

Kallol pats his long curls in place and tucks a foot under himself on the couch. Dressed in black-and-white printed pajamas and a long blue and red kurta, he looks at ease. The kurta-pajamas, long black hair, kohl-lined eyes, nose-ring and hand-fan may have all become a part of his signature style, but he points out that this is a toned down version of what he looked like once.

“Even in the design industry people are judgmental about the way you look. I had to tone down my look a bit to be taken more seriously,” says Kallol. “A lot of people think you’re getting the attention only because of the way you dress and not because of your clothes,” he adds.

Eyebrow-raising motifs like sperm (in the picture), and toilet signs with amputated legs are part of Kallol’s signature style

Kallol has always thought out-of-the-box and believed in himself. He recalls a volatile argument with his professor at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Calcutta, that ended with Kallol hurling a chair at her because she refused to accept “a slightly pornographic motif” that he had used in his lithography class.

As a designer he’s broken every rule in the book. You’ll find deconstructed garments in his collections — like hoods placed bang in front of the dress, sleeves cut at the shoulder and pockets and detailing that you would expect in front of the garment placed all over it.

There’s no embroidery. No bling. And no skin show. And cotton, that he usually sources directly from the mills, is his fabric of choice.

“I don’t do embroidery or bling because these don’t come naturally to me. By the same logic I can’t do lehenga cholis. When I say I do only westernwear, people expect me to do body-hugging outfits and bandage dresses. But I don’t do these either,” says Kallol.

He’s stuck to his guns — even if that has meant some hard times. For the first few years after launching his label he says he had to live “ like a university student, almost from cheque-to-cheque”.

In a market dominated by bring-on-the-bling bridalwear and embroidery that screams for attention, he began by doing just drapes and silhouettes. What’s more, he creates just two saris every season that also carry his out-of-the-ordinary prints. “People told me I wouldn’t survive if I didn’t do embroidery, so I put in prints,” he says.

The latest edition of Lakmé Fashion Week saw Kallol stealing the show at the grand finale

And this year, when a new directional shift in LFW prompted the organisers to go with the “most promising young talent” instead of industry veterans for the grand finale, Kallol emerged as an obvious choice. Kallol and designer duo Pankaj and Nidhi were the finale designers. “Lakmé’s grand finale designers are hand-picked for being fashion visionaries working with forecasting fashion trends for the season,” says Purnima Lamba, head-innovations, Lakmé.

But ask Kallol how the finale went and he says flatly: “I don’t know.” For, what his friends initially thought were nervous jitters that had raised his temperature turned out to be dengue fever that gave him a body-blow on Day 2 of LFW. On the day of the finale it was all he could do to walk down the ramp with an “extremely supportive” Kareena. And being Kallol, he even came up with the idea of being pushed down the ramp in a wheelchair by her (though it didn’t come to that).

And even as his finale collection got rave reviews, ace designer Wendell Rodricks points out that it came just five years after Kallol made his debut on the LFW ramps as a Gen Next designer. Says Rodricks, who mentored Kallol before his first show: “I had no job to do. When a designer has a style set in stone, one does not mess with it.”

Kallol was one of the first Indian designers to show at Berlin’s Mercedes- Benz Fashion Week recently

Rodricks adds: “I like the fact that Kallol uses cotton, quirky prints and a one-size-fits-all philosophy. And considering all of that, one would imagine sacks hanging from shoulders coming down the runway. Instead we get shape and silhouette in an uber-chic style.”

Kallol has climbed the ladder fast to become the designer to watch. In July, Kallol and Aneeth Arora became the first Indian designers to showcase their collections at Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week after being shortlisted by the LFW advisory board. “Berlin is one of the fastest developing markets in Europe and a perfect platform for emerging Indian talent,” says Anjana Sharma, the former director, fashion, IMG Reliance that co-organises LFW with Lakmé.

Add to that the fact that Kallol was part of the first fashion residency organised by KHOJ International Artists’ Association this February. KHOJ plays a key role in developing experimental and contemporary art practices in India through programmes like community art projects, exhibitions and residencies.

“Kallol’s clothes have a very strong and potent signature that is not necessarily beautiful in the way one would imagine clothes to be in terms of embellishment,” says Pooja Sood, director, KHOJ International Artists’ Association, Delhi. Kallol’s installation at the residency had garments dipped in plaster of Paris and rubber solution suspended around a cage that contained a high-on-bling top. The message was clear —we need to change our perception of fashion and bling.

The KHOJ residency was followed by his first solo art exhibition, Kallolculture, held in Calcutta’s The Harrington Street Arts Centre in July. Canvas art depicting the graphics he uses and installations, including one with garments representing his favourite silhouettes, were part of it.

Kallolculture showed the link between art and fashion, but there was more — a room filled with garbage bags and printing blocks bearing insect prints represented a crime scene in a garbage dump. Installations like these were just creative ideas in Kallol’s mind that needed to be expressed. “It is to reach out to a wider audience, whether it’s with canvas, Plaster of Paris or paper,” he says.

Since Kallol was born and brought up in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, his lines are influenced by Middle Eastern silhouettes. “And my girls are covered head-to-toe,” he adds. In fact, the region put him off bling permanently. “Whenever we had visitors, we had to do a pilgrimage to the souks and all that gold put me off bling for a lifetime,” he says.

But he always had an inclination towards more sombre art. His maternal grandparents lived in Geneva and he had cousins in France and Italy, so three months each year were spent in Europe. And during the numerous museum circuits they did, he found himself drawn not to masters like Monet, but rather to artists like Goya, he says. This is also where he became interested in design.

Kallol Datta’s saris also flaunt his out-of-the-ordinary prints

Did he always want to be a fashion designer? No, he says, adding that when he was in high school he wanted to be a news presenter. But his propensity to swear got in the way. “There’s a saying in Bengali that your mother never fed you honey — my friends used to tell me that,” he laughs.

He remembers being called Chamba Lamba (after the New Market jewellery store) in NIFT because of the sheer volume of silver jewellery he wore. But the multiple body-piercing and pink/ green hair that defined him didn’t get in his way while he was studying womenswear at Central Saint Martins in London between 2004 and 2006. “Everyone was too busy to care about such things there,” he says.

After a gap year, which Kallol spent travelling, he got down to business and debuted at LFW in 2007. While most young designers begin by testing the waters in the retail sector and then graduate to a fashion week, Kallol began his career head-on with a ramp show. He launched his label in March 2008.

He still doesn’t have a store in Calcutta, because he says he doesn’t see himself being swamped with orders here. The Kallol Datta 1955 label — priced upwards of Rs 8,000 — sells well in the south, especially Hyderabad and Bangalore, since the region loves cotton. Most importantly, orders pour in through Facebook and Twitter, on which he is very active.

So, he keeps a busy schedule, especially when fashion weeks are on. He says that he works about 18 hours a day in the three months leading up to a fashion week. He’s already done three this year and there’s one more to go.

Kallol is on a roll and he knows it. He says with a smile: “I couldn’t have plotted my growth-chart better.”