1st WORDS THAT COME TO THE MIND WHEN WE SAY:
LUXURY In the mind. It’s really subjective. For me now luxury is peace of mind, anything that gives me peace of mind, it’s not material things any more. And of course luxury is Anamika Khanna (laughs).
SABYASACHI Very talented, very sharp businessman.
CALCUTTA Is where my home is, is where my heart is.
t2 Love! Again, is where home is. I have found this comfort level, I have even requested you guys not to write something or post something, or not to go overboard, and you have always respected it. The content of t2 is very, very interesting, that is something I pick up every day... and I love the people in t2!!
1st AWAKENING OF MY DESIGN SENSIBILITY
My most vivid memory of fashion as such, and it still is my most cherished memory, is a picture of mom and me, both of us are wearing these fuchsia pink safari suits, with belts, like really chic and stylish, mowing the lawn. Every image that I have of mine as a child, I am dressed up, either in a sari, or a lehnga, or somebody has put flowers in my hair. So it’s not suddenly that my design sensibility awakened… it was almost there throughout the process of my growing up, in some form or the other. It may not have been designer clothes, may not have been fashion in that sense, but there was always something design somewhere or the other. My mom was fully into fashion, she had these Chester coats, she had these shoes lined up in her wardrobe… so those images are my memories.... She was always into this designer space. So that must have rubbed off somewhere (smiles).
1st TIME I DECIDED TO BE A DESIGNER
I didn’t decide that I am going to be a fashion designer. I was always sketching in some form or the other, not necessarily fashion. So this award thing came (Damania Fashion Awards), I sent my sketches, I won the award, they asked me to make six garments… that was panic attack because I had never made clothes before! But when it came to me, I was like ‘I love the idea’. So then it struck me that if I have to do it I’ll have to really do this well. I said let me not go to the market and buy fabric and go to the tailor to make garments, let me figure out how to create something which has not been thought of or done. I bought a book on African textiles, then I started creating textures looking at those Shuar textiles. Once that happened I started thinking of shapes, different things…. I don’t know how it all started.
1st TASTE OF SUCCESS
Success is still long miles away… there’s so much to achieve. You know it’s weird, people say you’ve achieved so much, somehow it doesn’t affect me. Something happens and you move on to the next. So I have never been able to say that okay this was my big thing… somehow I feel it’s a long way to go. I have always had that. And then, how do you define success… what might be success for me might not be relevant to someone else.
My career from the time I started has been an incessant journey of all sorts of experiences... good, bad, success, failure, extreme struggles, extreme agony and extreme happiness at the same time. But somehow I didn’t feel anything. Also I have been very lucky, because I’ve never had to sell my clothes, I’ve never been able to produce enough, I’ve never had to do any marketing, people have been after us to give them clothes.
The other thing is, throughout my career I have never thought I am going to become this and I am going to become that, it’s always been about the journey than the end and as I grow up I realise it more and more. I feel so blessed, and I feel god has given me something, which is to wake up in the morning and want to go to work. I am excited, I want to run to work every day. It’s tough, because you have to sacrifice a whole lot… you don’t have time to blow-dry your hair and go to a party! And it’s a tough job to do, but I won’t change this journey for anything. When somebody asks me what would you do if not making clothes, I don’t have an answer.
1st FEELING OF MOTHERHOOD
Scared. Like dying. What had hit me… twins!! I was 46kg, frail, most interested in my clothes, my body and my fitness. And then suddenly this… I was like ‘god, why am I being punished’… I used to cry and cry and cry (laughs)!! That was my first feeling of motherhood. And now, they’re (sons Vishesh and Viraj) the most beautiful part of my life.
1st TIME MY SONS PLAYED GOLF
I always wanted my boys to move from cricket to golf… they were playing cricket seriously… I always wanted them to move to a sport that would last them a lifetime. When they were three or four, I gave them these mini golf sets… after two years Viraj tells me ‘mom, that was the worst gift ever’. (Laughs) But once they got into it they really did get into it… and I was quite involved… they started playing really well. It’s always a good feeling, I have all those pictures, their names in the newspapers.... Golf has made them into gentlemen… because you play with older men and there is a certain etiquette… so that has really influenced them… and made them who they are now.
1st THING I DO AFTER WAKING UP
I wake up with my prayers, my Namokara mantra. Mostly after I get up I like to think, I spend an hour or so when I just think, about my collection, ideas, about the day, about life… that’s the time when I just sit and I want my own time. So I am fairly calm in the morning before the madness starts. And then of course I start waking the whole house up with my chai, and this and that!
1st THING I DO AFTER ENTERING OFFICE
Everyone panics... the minute I enter office, everyone runs. Especially if I’ve left early the previous evening, I find everything wrong. So first I go around and pull out things which I want to change.
1st THING I DO WHEN BACK HOME FROM WORK
It’s actually very random. There are days when you go out and then there are days when you put up your feet and have a cup of tea and relax. Sometimes I watch a bit of TV, also sometimes I just go back and think today I am going to sit and design. When the boys are in town it’s different.
1st ADVICE FOR NEW DESIGN INTERNS
My first piece of advice to my interns is to feel free, be creative. In my place there’s no restrictions.
1st PERSON I CALL AFTER LANDING IN CALCUTTA AND BOMBAY
In Calcutta I call up my mother, and in Bombay I either call up my sister (Suruchi) or Sonam (Kapoor).
1st FILM I WANT TO WATCH WHEN RELAXING
Scarface, Al Pacino… totally obsessed! Then Sholay… I’ve seen it 100 times (laughs). And then Life is Beautiful, it’s such a beautiful movie that touches your heart.
1st THINGS ON TV I WANT TO WATCH
I watch Criminal Minds, Law & Order, Suits… anything to do with crime. I like to solve murder mysteries… we have this joke that I have reached a stage where I can murder someone and get away with it, I have learnt all the tricks of the trade (laughs out loud).
1st BOOK ON FASHION THAT MADE AN IMPACT
I think I went and read a book on fashion vocabulary… so it was this thick book that had every description of every corset, every neckline… it really intrigued me. Then Fifty Dresses That Changed The World and then a book on Valentino, his life history. Those three-four books really made a difference to my life.
1st FASHION MOVIE THAT COMES TO MIND
Funny Face, Audrey Hepburn… I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it… fashion-wise I was awed.
1st DESTINATION I THINK OF WHEN PLANNING A HOLIDAY
I haven’t been travelling that avidly for holiday, but I think I would like to go to Jodhpur, I am a pampered soul there. My family is there, so waking up in the morning with someone holding a plate of oversized jalebis beside your bed… that doesn’t happen every day... that’s such a beautiful feeling to be pampered. So it’s people who matter, besides the place.
1st DESIGNER I EVER WORE
Rohit Bal… many years ago… it was an ivory kalidar kurta which made me feel like a goddess, then I went and bought one more and then I asked him to make another one, he thinks I’m mad (laughs). This was after I started working, but before that when I was in college there used to be lots of clothes from Monapali. Now I wear Rajesh Pratap Singh, Rohit Bal of course, Savio Jon, Rohit Gandhi, Dries Van Noten, Max Mara, Valentino… and many other international designers.
Mad hatter. She has a mind of her own. She’s a girl who’s extremely intelligent, she knows she is extremely gorgeous, she knows her clothes… she knows everything, which is amazing, yet she’s a free spirit, that’s what I like about her… she has no binding, she’s not scared to take risks. She’s made a statement of her own, and she’s happy to do that… you need guts to do that. So complete respect
— Anamika on Sonam
Every time I see a collection of Anamika’s I feel it’s the best and I think every collection gets better and better and I feel so happy that I get to wear the clothes…. Her designs are very thoughtful, they are artistic, and they make women feel beautiful…. I think all her clothes look good on me. I love pastels mostly and she usually uses more pastels in her clothes
— Sonam on Anamika
1st COLLECTION
My first six garments were for the Damania Fashion Awards. You can call it a collection, but I was surprised at myself how I made a collection… similar colours, similar stories, similar inspirations. But honestly I didn’t know anything about fashion as such or making garments… I didn’t know what a metre of fabric was… but somehow it worked. And when I made that presentation, some of the stores were already telling me that they wanted to keep my clothes. And for me that was like… when they are stocking Tarun (Tahiliani) and Gudda (Rohit Bal) and JJ (Valaya)… where am I?! This would be around 1995.
1st GARMENT EVER SOLD
This collection that I made, Yashodhara Shroff from Ffolio (Bangalore) saw it…. And then Prasad Bidapa (fashion promoter) forced me to send samples to Ogaan, then I don’t know what struck me, I sent the samples to Ogaan and they started placing orders in multiples... and I was getting panic attacks, like hello, what’s going on!! Yashodhara Shroff took the collection and started selling it and that’s how I moved from one store to another… but the first garment sold would be from Ffolio.
It’s really amazing you know, because I came out of nowhere and that too from Calcutta… and then suddenly you have your clothes in a multi-brand store. It was very unnerving… I sent four samples to Ensemble, and then I met Tarun and I got scared… he wouldn’t remember… I didn’t have the guts to send more than four samples. Now it has become very easy, that time it was not so… the designers were like The Designers, it was a different ball game, everyone was not a designer that time. They got really fed up because I wasn’t sending any more and they put those on the racks and apparently they got sold in one hour. Then they asked for more clothes… that’s how the journey started.
1st SHOW
So Damania was officially the first show. Then between Ogaan and Ffolio they did a lot of promotions in the stores. But my first big show was in Lakme India Fashion Week. When they started, I got a call from them saying they’re offering me a three-designer show. So that’s how it started, I had a booth which I was sharing with two other designers.
1st STORE
This one (her flagship store at 2/1 Outram Street, a lane off Theatre Road)… it opened around 12 years back. I am planning to open in Delhi and Bombay now. Yeah, everything I do very slow. It’s high time I had my presence. But life has been very full, with the boys and all. But you know, I don’t know anything but clothes… if you put a million other things this side and one garment on the other side, I’ll run to the garment. That’s just me. My interest level is so high in that that I forget everything else. So everything else happens very slowly. My friends and colleagues think I am an idiot (laughs).
1st PAT ON THE BACK
I think Prasad Bidapa, he was my mentor in my starting days. And then Ritu Kumar and Monapali… they were the ones who came up to me and talked about my collection… it was very big for me at that time, to get it from such seniors is a very big thing.
1st FEELING OF CONTENTMENT IN WORK
Contentment is not there only, I hate everything I have just done… and I move on to the next one. I wish there was some contentment that way… I am content with my life… content in my heart, my soul, but I don’t have contentment in work. Even today there was full drama in my office… I am like ‘this is bad, that is bad, let’s re-do this, let’s re-do that’… (laughs)… they are like ‘what’s wrong with you?!’ I don’t want to be content, I don’t want to say ‘oh my god, this is it’, because that day is probably the day I am going to say ‘I’m quitting’.
The day I am going to be able to make the simplest garment perfectly without a single piece of embroidery or work... it needs to be flawless, needs to feel like butter on the body… that day I will be like I have done it. I am not ready for it yet.
What we do is endless… this constant learning, this constant movement is a beautiful thing. And brides… it’s such a beautiful moment… somebody told me recently that so many parents must be giving you blessings every day… when the daughters feel so happy on their special day… such a nice thing to say, it touched my heart.
1st PEOPLE WHO INFLUENCED ME
Karl Lagerfeld, Vivienne Westwood. When I first discovered Vivienne Westwood, I went mad… I was so taken in by the madness of the clothes. I didn’t understand the intrinsic reason for it and why she did what she did… I just went so mad with the courage. And the way the draping was happening, the way she dressed… it was insanity. It just sort of messed my mind up, and it changed something. So Vivienne Westwood was a very big influence in my life.
And then Madonna… like I said when I started there wasn’t so much knowledge available, you just got bits and pieces of information in magazines… so when Material Girl came, when all those songs of her came and that avatar of hers, the way she dressed! Then Tina Turner… these people really started influencing me because these were very powerful women. And these women had a mind of their own in terms of fashion, each one had their own identity. Madonna kept reinventing her look every single season, every single song! It was really amazing how she was doing it… like you change your clothes, but how do you change your body type, your hair each time?
I was obsessed with Bruce Springsteen… like, really obsessed, I had pictures of him…. So these people, besides fashion people, were the others who influenced me.
1st TIME I WENT GLOBAL
Was with Ana-Mika (her pret label for the global market). It just started off with an idea… my partner (global venture) came up to me and said that people use India for outsourcing, no one is thinking of taking an Indian label globally. It was just a small idea, I didn’t take it that seriously but got into it. Sent some samples for London Fashion Week, got called, showed there. And then the stores started picking us up… Harrods picked us up, and couple of other stores picked us up, then one thing after the other, by the end of the fourth year we were selling in more than 100 stores all over the world.
Anamika is my best friend, a wonderful compassionate human being, a doting mother to her two boys and above all, a genius in design! Anamika and I love discussing design, interiors, jewellery, clothes, furniture, art... the list is endless.
We have done several shows together.... the most stunning one being the Paris Fashion Week show at the Louvre, which was iconic. It’s uncanny, but our design sensibility is similar... taking traditional Indian design and craft in a modern contemporary context to create cutting-edge design... and yet so Indian.
Anamika’s sense of style and design is powerful and iconic. I feel she has redefined Indian fashion forever. She has made her place and is revered in fashion and design circles. Go to any big wedding party and you can be sure half the room will be in an Anamika Khanna ensemble.
In spite of this, Ana is a humble soul. She is so hard-working and determined that I am in awe of her as she goes about her dream of changing Indian fashion and putting it on the world map!
— Raj Mahtani couture jeweller
1st TASTE OF ‘DESIGN SCHOOL’
But you know what, I didn’t go to design school… this was my design school. I got hammered. Not literally, but mentally I got beaten up. It was such a big challenge. It was this awakening that we are sitting in this small well here and we call it fashion, this is not what it’s about. This was my awakening to the realisation that Indian fashion is not yet international. Somebody from outside, when they perceived Indian fashion, they thought cheap crafts, they thought costumes. Because for them saris and lehngas are costumes. Then they thought bright colours, mirror work, bright zari… I just realised this is not who we are… we have to bring about that change. And I also realised that as Indian designers we are very happy putting everything on one garment… so there’s cut, there’s many colours, many layers, many embroideries, and then there’s layers on top of it… this is not what the world wants. Only as Indians we can do it and get away with it, and look resplendent and beautiful.
A lot of things happened, I showed in Paris Fashion Week (2007). So it was my biggest learning ever… itni pitai hui hai na mentally you cannot imagine, I’ve had my clothes thrown out, I’ve been told ‘what do you think you’re doing’. And then to think of pricing, deliveries… it was a very big learning on how to professionalise… what are seasons, what are collections. In India we make garments without size, like one size fits all… saris don’t need sizes, of course we make magical blouses, no one can stitch blouses like Indian tailors and fit them so beautifully on a body, but somehow we didn’t know about small, medium, large…. So first time I went global I was a new kid on the block. Here I might be very secure in my space, but when you go there you realise you’re nothing and you have to start from scratch. So I did a lot of training, a lot of learning… the partnership didn’t last, but I will always be grateful for this learning. So whatever courage I got to experiment in fashion and not be scared, was after that experience.
1st THING THAT INDIAN DESIGNERS NEED TO DO TO GO GLOBAL
Even today we don’t exist (Indian fashion in the global context)… In India nobody is taking that presentation of fashion so seriously… there’s no force… there’s Manish Arora, there’s Rahul Mishra, but those single individuals are doing things on their own, it’s very, very tough, hats off to them for being able to sustain it. Unless there is a force working towards it in a certain way, there’s no chance of the world noticing it. Somebody has to gather their guts and go out there and make that change… being from India is very difficult because it always takes that extra time and extra effort to break the mindset. They still think we are not good enough, which is not true… they can’t do what we do, the treasure that we have they don’t have… they come to India and dip into our treasure, but they still don’t get it. Nobody in the world can take a piece of fabric and drape it in so many ways and be comfortable in it.
