TIMELESS: Sabyasachi Mukherjee at his Lake Road store on Wednesday. (Pabitra Das)

From outside it’s like Hansel and Gretel’s candy and cake house. From inside it’s like a museum of magic and memories. It is supposed to be Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s flagship store but it really is his “labour of love”. And that it makes those stepping inside feel like Alice in Wonderland is not just coincidental.

545 Lake Road. The address, off Vivekananda Park, that gave Calcutta an initial taste of designer life as Ogaan many years ago reopens its heavy metal doors on Thursday as Sabyasachi. (But the doors will open by appointment only.)

“Khulchhe kintu.... Bhablam khulbe na (It’s opening. I was beginning to think it wouldn’t),” said Sabyasachi, slumping in a chair, on August 15, three nights before the big opening and one night after the big Taj Bengal-t2 show.

The property was acquired a year-and-a-half ago and has been a work-in-progress since. Sabya has designed and executed the interiors, with Ranjini Sikri helping in the finishing.

The store is a visual treat. Roughly 3800sq feet, it is divided into four main areas — only one of which is a commercial zone. First, step into something that has the feel of a preparation area, with four mannequins and lots of eclectic furniture. A hallway, that is equally surreal, leads to the commercial area and finally the cafe.

The store boasts of almost 1,000 framed pictures, with Nanda, Maharani Gayatri Devi, Ganesha Tanjore…. Urns, wall clocks, carpets, trunks, velvety details, lampshades, a split AC wearing a perforated rusted “trench coat”, the soap dish and even the choice of music (Edith Piaf, Begum Akhtar, Shubha Mudgal, Leonard Cohen and sometimes Nazia Hassan) are signature Sabya.

Red-tinted and romantic, vintage and distressed, this kind of epitomises India shining…“but with everything dirty”, said the fashion designer about his new den.

The cafe is designed around a tree trunk. The ceiling is stained glass and the light changes magically from dawn to dusk. The cafe also houses a large table, some benches with gara cushions. A bookshelf where Reader’s Digest (1977) is placed above Playboy 1966 Book of Party Jokes. Fountainhead (Sabya’s personal favourite) nestles with Mouchak.

“This will be my private little tea party,” declared the designer, pouring make-belief tea into a dainty teacup (1925) in the cafe area on Wednesday afternoon. “This store represents who I am as a person. This is the closest any stranger can get to knowing me.”

Wondering why clothes don’t feature anywhere in Sabya’s store story? Well, for the first few days clothes don’t feature anywhere in the store. “I want people to feel the ambience rather than buy clothes for the first few days,” said Sabya, who has opened a Delhi and a Mumbai address in the past nine months.

“This is my last store,” he said. Then, in the same breath, “Next, will be a Parisian atelier.”