He had told t2 that he would like to see Rihanna wearing this collection, and we now totally agree. Not just Rihanna, you could easily visualise any Hollywood actress channelling the latest Sabya couture on any red carpet in the world.
When Sabya does sexy, sexy takes on a whole new meaning. His models are covered neck to toe, yet they ooze sensuality in dollops. At the opening night of Amazon India Couture Week 2015 at Taj Palace in Delhi on Wednesday, Sabyasachi Mukherjee surprised with an out-and-out high-gloss red-carpet collection called Batair (more on that later).

The collection is fashioned completely out of net, hand-embroidered to create the textures. It’s big on sheer obviously, and it’s steeped in bling! Before sending out his designs on the ramp, the Calcutta designer gave t2 a low-down on his latest line...

This line is nothing like what we’ve seen from you in the past. What’s the idea?

When I was first thinking of doing this collection, the first thing I thought about was nudity (laughs). Nudity is something that people don’t associate me with. So, a lot of sheer and a lot of unlined clothing… there’s no lining in the clothes. It’s built in such a way that they almost look like handmade lace. I also wanted to do a couture week where I said to myself let us not do anything that is a plain fabric… so everything in this collection from head to toe, including the lining, is hand-embroidered and it looks like fabric, but there’s no fabric. Some of them look like tattered fabric, some of them look like textured fabric…. 

For me, it was the hardest collection to put together because there were so many man-hours involved, like some of the garments took 600-700 man-hours to finish. So to do about 40 womenswear and 50 menswear pieces took the life out of me. Ta chharao I was doing many things... I always produce my own music, the press kits, the invitations, there’s a lunch that has to be put together for the next day, the pre-show cocktails, the guest list… nowadays it’s not just the show. Then we sent out a teaser of the show for which we did a small animation film, many things happened… but I’m just happy that the show is over… in my head it’s over. 

What’s the story of the collection?

The collection is called Batair. ‘Batair’ is a partridge; it used to be the most favourite hunting bird of India and the whole collection is based on hunting birds and birds of prey. So whether it’s distressed, tortured textures, feathers, skin, claws, the bags with spikes… the whole thing is basically birds of war. I wanted to do a collection that was very dark, very predatory and extremely, extremely, extremely high on glamour. If you see my whole collection, it’s entirely a red-carpet collection. There is no garment in the whole collection that can be worn for a normal occasion. 
The colour palette starts with blacks and then it goes into deep olive, sand, beige... then it clears into white and ends with a very rich dark burnt red, almost like the colour of dried blood. So the whole colour palette is inspired by the colours of the feathers of the batair. And the silhouettes are very body-conscious, there’s a lot of texture, there’s a lot of asymmetry and there’s an extremely high amount of sheer-ness and sometimes the underwear are in-built into the garments with embroidery. So we have done a lot of embroidery in strategic positions, so that you see a lot of nudity but you don’t see anything at all.

Who do you see wearing these clothes?

You’ll laugh, but it’s Rihanna. It’s not a collection for the faint-hearted. It’s also inspired by one of my eternal muses, Madonna… it is extremely glamorous clothes. I gave myself a brief that this time I wanted to do clothes that are very powerful, dark, sexual, predatory and extremely glamorous. For me glamour was very important this year. 

Are you looking more at the international market with this line?

India is as international as international market can be; look at the consumption of red-carpet clothing in this country… now people wear it for weddings also. Whether it’s Elie Saab or Oscar de la Renta, lots of people are wearing stronger body-conscious clothing. But what we have done is, though the collection is very western in feel, we have kept the spirit almost as a synthesis between the east and west. It does not feel like this collection has no Indian soul at all.

With your Big Love collection last year, you had brought on the bling. Is it a deliberate move towards glamour, bling and sensual clothing?

I will always continue to do ethnic clothes because that’s the soul of the company, but I don’t need to show ethnic clothing always because my ethnic clothing is very classic. I don’t want to change that because that’s the signature of the brand. But there is no need for me to do a runway show with ethnic clothing. People who know my brand will always come back for that, but on the runway there is no point in telling the same story over and over again. 
What we decided is that since the company is 100 per cent dependent on craft and one of the biggest missions of the company is to grow the craft sector and create employment, I wanted to do a different range of clothing that would include a different customer base, grow the business of the company yet keep crafts alive. 

Last year in Big Love, people thought there was no embroidery at all, true enough, but almost the entire collection has block printing, some of the block prints are 18-colour, 19-colour prints. Bengal was one of the biggest hubs of block printing in the country, but it is dying. So whenever we do a show, we think of the socio-economic impact it will have on the hinterland of Bengal. 

What I also need to do as a responsible businessman, I’m not taking a social angle here, but yes, my vendors have given a lot back to me, so it is very, very important for me to reinvent and find a new market for them. So every time you are creating a product, you are generating jobs for people. And the company is very committed that we create jobs for people over and over and over again.

Even Big Love had shocked a lot of people. What are you expecting from this line?

Honestly, I didn’t find anything surprising about Big Love. You know, people put too much attention to the fact that we do bridal clothes; many of them don’t even enter my stores to see that I do many, many things beyond bridal clothes. If you look at Big Love, there are very signature identities of the brand. For instance, there are full sleeves, high necks, there are Anarkalis reinvented into jumpsuits... so it was a synthesis of the same thing but reinvented. 
I think many people have a pre-conceived notion about the brand... that the brand can’t do young, trendy, sexual clothes. And it’s always nice to surprise people (smiles). I would like to see what people say about the clothes (in Batair). I am very fond of the clothes because the labour intensity of the clothes was tremendous. Personally, if you ask me, the craft in the company has matured to such a level that I can take this kind of clothes anywhere in the world and if you were to take the labels out of the clothes people wouldn’t even know where they’ve come from and for me that’s a big battle won. As far as the people are concerned, I know it’s going to shock a lot of them. More so because there’s a lot of nudity in the clothes. 

A common criticism would be the overdose of bling…

I love bling, I’ve always done bling. You know loke ki bhabe, je chheleta ekhono kantha and vegetable dye chhara evolve hote pareni. You know the press in India can be quite myopic, once they put a tag on you they will always keep that tag and they don’t expect you to evolve beyond that. And I don’t like to be boxed in by anybody. A true designer who remains successful throughout his life is one who decides to do what he wants to do and not get bogged down by people’s criticism or what people say. 

See, at the end of the day, I love to look at women, I like how women look in beautiful clothes, and in my own way I’ve done very ethnic clothes which have been very traditionally beautiful. I always tell my team to create beautiful clothes and beautiful clothes shouldn’t have any boundaries. They shouldn’t come from the west or the east. Say, if I like a lily, I can also like a jasmine. I like Indian classical music, but I also like rock ’n’ roll. For me, the thing has to make sense. 

I’ve never done very glamorous eveningwear, which is red-carpet clothing. I wanted to try my hand at it, let’s see how far it goes. I’ve pushed my boundaries, I didn’t want to stay within my comfort zone, and I’m happy with it.