SCIENCE STUDENT IN LOVE WITH THE ARTS
I was a serious student. While I had to excel in studies, I also realised that whenever it came to doing something more creative, I was more interested. So I would love to go to my art class, to my needlework class, while everyone hated it. I liked that space, though I was a science student studying physics, chemistry, math. Painting, sketching would be automatic things that I would keep doing, I never studied it formally though. In dance I must have got an award every year from Class I to XII. So that’s something on the creative side that really interested me. When I went to college, my friends would come up to me for advice on what to wear, how to team up things.
FROM THAT DAY TO TODAY, I HAVEN’T SLEPT
Then I got an opportunity... there was an awards thing and I sent my sketches randomly… when I won that first time I got the chance to make some clothes. I had no idea, because I didn’t have formal training, neither did I know the names of the fabrics, I didn’t know what was one metre of fabric (laughs). The sketches got accepted and Prasad Bidapa (fashion promoter) called and said you have to show. I said what will I show, I have never made clothes.
I picked up this book on African textiles and there were these very interesting textures… this Shuar tribe in Africa, everything they did you can’t see the cloth, you can only see the work done on it. It’s very fascinating, especially if you’ve never seen anything like that. I got into this phase that I didn’t want to go to the stores and pick up textiles and cut them and make clothes, I wanted to create something that has never been seen before. I just went crazy and drove everybody crazy… but I made those pieces and I won that award.
Then I was called to Bombay for the final show and then the stores saw my work and picked me up. I started supplying to Folio in Bangalore. What I started doing was using new fabrics… that time nobody was using net or chiffon, so I started layering them, started pastel colours. I used to hand-paint on top of embroidery. That time the resources were less, the exposure was less. But it got stuck in my head that I will not do what is available. That time not much was available, saris were mostly printed, so I started doing textured saris. I started doing innovative things and somehow it worked, the numbers were small, because I didn’t have courage and I didn’t know how to go about it.
Then slowly, slowly I got a little workshop. I sent samples to Ogaan and Kavita Bhartia saw them and said who’s this girl, I want to meet her. I had sent eight samples, and she wanted each one into eight pieces. I was like, are you mad, I cannot produce 64 pieces! She got stuck. Then she started really promoting me. Ensemble was the best at that time. Prasad Bidapa kept asking me to send my samples to them but I didn’t have the guts to send to Ensemble… I sent four samples and they wrote me a rude letter saying four samples are not enough. I thought something’s wrong. They got fed up and put those four on the floor and all of them got sold out in one hour. Then they started hounding me.
And the story of hounding still continues. That was the start and then it was just one step at a time. I didn’t have any assistants, or design help, I was too egoistic to ask for money… so I started with a really small amount. And after that it was really one thing after the other... 1996-97 I launched my label.
But yeah, from that day to today, I haven’t slept!
SCREAMING... LAUGHING... NEVER A DULL MOMENT
I personally think from the time I started, because I was doing things that were innovative and new, the demand was always more than I could supply. So from that time until today I am still struggling to supply only! And you know, when you don’t have to push yourself to sell, and I am fortunate that this has happened, other things take a backseat.
I never felt I should go for formal training because I never had the time after that. But every day I did feel that I wish I knew how to cut patterns, I wish I knew how to do this and that… but there’s also the fact that when you learn from experience, that first-hand knowledge is also very high. Even today if I get a chance I will go study, but I have never regretted anything. I have always put in my hundred per cent, so there is no scope of regret.
Even today I woke up two hours before everybody else and did my research. And 20 years is a very long time… if you do something non-stop, then you know. It’s instinctive. Suppose you make mistakes, you then figure it out by yourself and you’ll never forget it again. And then you are learning because of desire. I used to read up all the books that all the students were reading. So I read because I wanted that knowledge, and that knowledge is very strong.
If I went to a design school, maybe my technical knowledge would have been more sound, but maybe I wouldn’t have had the courage to innovate as much as I have done. Because then you think within a box, but I was thinking on my own, nobody was guiding me to think like this or like that. That also makes a difference.
When I made the first garments… those mulmul Anarkalis, people were queuing up for them. And that pleasure got into my system. To get up in the morning and think, ‘Aaj kya karenge naya…’ that just got into my system. And from that day till now … I think if you cut me up and see, I think you’ll see my blood is made of clothes only!
Even today after 20 years if there’s something new and exciting, we are all like, WOW! There’s always a challenge, there’s always screaming and shouting and there are always happy moments, but never a dull moment. Now if you leave me for 15 minutes with nothing to do, I am like what do I do now?!
INNOVATION, MY BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT
My biggest achievement is yet to come. A lot of people tell me you’ve done so much, you’ve achieved so much, but for me it is doing one thing and then you move on and take the next step. So I don’t want to ballpark anything that going to Paris Fashion Week was my biggest achievement or anything like that, there’s lots of things that have come my way.
I think more than receiving awards and recognition, my achievements I will put in a different perspective. My achievement in terms of innovation of dress is stronger than having received some award or having crossed some barrier of sales. For instance, the first achievement in my head was to break the barrier of Indian garments and to go international. And to bring the international into India.
When I was doing all these, the concept of Indo-Western did not exist, I started innovating… with the dhoti, the salwar, the lehnga. I started showing lehngas with tops and boots. I started innovating with saris… the first one to actually drape the sari over different things. Or the dhoti, which went viral and everybody started wearing the dhoti. Then the capes came and everybody started innovating with the capes. But the first idea, that was an achievement. I managed to break the mould and bring something that didn’t exist. Those things intrinsically have far more value than me having sold internationally or launching an international label when nobody had a label.
STRESS... DEADLINES... INSPIRATION
I have never been able to explain where these ideas come from. Like for my dhoti, Ojhaji (worker in the factory) downstairs inspired me. I kept looking at his dhoti and kept thinking ‘very interesting’… then I forced him to drape the dhoti and kept looking at it… then we cut the excess fabric, put more luxury fabric there, then we created a shape out of it. This lehnga sari when I first made… in my mom’s wardrobe she had a sari like that with frills in the front. It was phenomenal, how beautiful it looked… so that’s how the idea of the lehnga sari came.
And when I did the sari with the trouser, there was this girl who said, ‘Oh my god, I don’t know how to wear a sari’. That’s when I started thinking that these young girls refuse to wear a sari because to drape it properly is a cumbersome process. So how do we present the sari to them so that it becomes a cool, hip, chic thing? That’s when I did the first trouser sari and from there it went into different things.
So there is this constant endeavour of what you can create with what exists. See, everything exists in some form or the other. What you can do with it and how it becomes now and acceptable, logical and practical.
Today, my inspirations can come from anywhere… more stress, more inspiration, more deadlines, more inspirations.
Everyone tells me why can’t you think six months in advance, but I will think six days in advance, that’s how it happens. I love the idea... like the English lace… how can you take the English lace and make it Indian. I want to take the whole world and make it Indian, and see what we can do!
THE SHE AWARDS WAS A PROUD MOMENT
It is such an honour to be a part of The Telegraph She Awards. See, fashion is considered frivolous, everyone thinks we just party and do timepass… if somebody asks me if I am socially responsible, I am probably more responsible than most others because we keep the crafts alive. Imagine a world where there was no fashion, everybody just looked the same, imagine how dull and boring life would be. Designers are important, they are as important as the guy who manufactures, say, light bulbs. But it has never been taken seriously. So when you get an award like this one, first of all you know that you’ve been respected for what you do and you have been taken seriously. And the group of ladies whom you are put with, all of them doing substantial work... I think it is a really proud moment. It is very special.
