Aseem Kapoor was busy shooting with actor Danish Pandor of Dhurandhar fame on the evening of June 3 (India time) when we called him to chat about his first showcase as the creative director of Satya Paul in London the day before. “Look through everything. You’ll have a lot of fun because there’s so much work that has gone in,” Aseem told us.

We did.

And loved it.

Called ‘Untamed’, the collection is completely Aseem in spirit. Since its launch five years ago, Aseem’s eponymous brand has become synonymous with the delicate mastery of daring pattern play, layering, and incredible styling. The storytelling on the ramp is almost cinematic. Aseem draws from “tribal and folk modes of dressing” and gives them a cool-modern twist. The designs are earthy but contemporary.

With Satya Paul, it’s been an effortless transition. He took over in April, succeeding David Abraham, Kevin Nigli and Rakesh Thakore. “I want to understand this from the archives. I think it’s more important to go back to the legacy, understand why that brand took off and what the reasons were,” Aseem told us soon after.

For ‘Untamed’, it was 50-50. “I pulled out things from the ‘90s and early 2000s —some great work from that era — and we created some new pieces specifically for the show. There’s a beautiful tunic with a headband and pants; it’s very classic. That is all new. Then there’s a beautiful serpent print, which is actually not a serpent; it’s just an all-over print. So, many new things have been done for the show,” Aseem told t2 over the phone from London.

‘Untamed’ was presented as part of SXSW London, ‘a global festival for the convergence of business, technology and creativity’, following an invitation from the UK Department for Business and Trade. Held at the famous Lancaster House, this marked Satya Paul’s first international presentation. The eponymous brand was founded in Delhi in 1985 and became a cult classic for its printed saris across generations. The founder later gave up everything to live his final days at the Isha Yoga Centre in Coimbatore. Puneet Nanda, his son, also embraced the same spirit when he decided to quit the brand in 2010. His Facebook profile states he volunteers at the Isha Foundation. Subsequently, the brand has seen several creative directors, including Rajesh Pratap Singh and Masaba Gupta. Gauri Khan also designed saris for Satya Paul and recently Aditi Rao Hydari collaborated on a capsule collection that was unveiled at Lakme Fashion Week X FDCI in Mumbai in March.

Aseem’s interpretation captured the brand’s intrepid spirit, including all its sassiness, drama and cool quotient. The mood was maximally international, featuring a bold play of colours and patterns.

“We wanted to understand what I want to do because there’s an amazing legacy, 40 years of very interesting work, and such amazing creative directors that Satya Paul has seen over the period of time. So it was important that I bring in something of my own, obviously taking from what Satya Paul is known for and what they do. I started working on a lot of layering, how I perceive and how I look at things. Although Satya Paul’s designs are very clean and graphic, I wanted to take that graphic element and introduce more of Aseem Kapoor’s style, which features abundant flora and fauna, with a lot of graphics. This whole madness became ‘Untamed’ as a collection for me,” said Aseem.

Aseem was clear on how he wanted to treat the sari. Not as a sari. “We collaborated with Nikhil (Rajan D., creative director) on this, because I knew that between him and me, we could create these amazing forms. That is all I was interested in, because I didn’t want to showcase the sari as just a sari, as there is nothing more to contribute. So everything was a sari, but it was shaped on the body in such an interesting way that it didn’t look traditional or conventional. And it was about the print and the art, and then the forms made the look more interesting,” said Aseem. We loved a look made of twists and turns.

Aseem said that menswear, too, would now be a part of the regular narrative. In the showcase, they were as edgy-cool as the women were. “Menswear has always been an integral part of Satya Paul accessories. My brother has literally grown up wearing Satya Paul ties and cufflinks. Rajesh also designed some interesting menswear during his time as a creative director, but I mean to also make it more commercial. When I say commercial, I mean real people should wear it for a specific occasion. I intend to make it a big category for Satya Paul,” said Aseem.

We told him how much we liked the zebra-print look. “That’s one of the archival prints. I think that print was done in the early ‘90s or something. I love what Satya Paul did earlier because you pick up things from the past that still resonate now. I really wanted to tell a black-and-white story. I did one print that featured dots and stripes with a little red. We also wanted to create a complete black-and-white story. So then we went into the archives and found this print is amazing. And then we had a reverse colour. There was a black base with an ivory on top, and then there was a white base with a black on top. And these were saris. We thought, let’s print them on a nice linen fabric suitable for menswear and see what we want to do. We also showcased women’s wear right next to the man, like a full mirror image, a yin and yang kind of a print,” explained Aseem.

The menswear silhouettes included shackets, shirts, and pants.

‘Untamed’ looked international, we told Aseem. “I think as a brand, Satya Paul has always been very forward-thinking. Even when I was going through the archive, I realised that Mr Satya Paul was designing, he was never doing anything which is ethnic or traditional in terms of motif language. That was my learning from the brand. So if you see each and every print, it just feels like it could belong anywhere in the world. It’s not limited to a particular thing. The eye is very global. The eye is not restricted to the idea that we have to make a sari or we have to make a kurta out of it. It is a beautiful print, and we have incorporated whatever blends beautifully from it. That kind of helped me build the whole narrative,” said Aseem.

The showcase featured a specially commissioned performance by percussionist, composer and producer Sarathy Korwar and British Tamil movement artiste Hashna Siva presented a bespoke performance that blended Indian percussion, classical Bharatanatyam and contemporary movement.

“I realised that when you work with the best, you will always get the best. My biggest takeaway is to stay original. I just feel that it’s important to go with what your gut says and just follow it,” said Aseem of his takeaway from the experience.

How was it different from anything he had done previously? “The scale was massive. It was a solo show. So, I felt I had never experienced that scale myself. Here, I was kind of literally directing the entire thought. The venue kind of just made the scale even bigger,” said Aseem.

Our mind went back to that March conversation where he told us how initially reluctant he was to take up the position because he worried about how it would shape his relatively new brand.

Thank God he did, because it’s an exceptionally seamless partnership.

 Pictures courtesy: Satya Paul