‘My 30 years in the industry stands for patience, resilience’

By Puja Gupta

New Delhi, Feb 4 (SocialNews.XYZ) Veteran fashion designer Manish Malhotra who will be completing 30 years in costumes designing this year says his journey of there decades stands for focus, patience, resilience and evolving with time.

He says the definition of fashion for him has also changed over the years.

When he entered the Bollywood fashion industry, he wanted to change the way how 90s movies used to look like but never thought of starting his own label which completes 15 years this month.

"I think in the map of Indian fashion, I have a very unique space and the only designer to have that kind of space because I am self-taught. I came with an absolute passion for Hindi films and I came from observing them. I wanted to change the way movies were in the early 90s... And I thought it was going to be only about movies. When I got into movies, it was all about revolutionizing it, wanting to change it, the process of bringing that strong fashion or style quotient in it. It was something I stepped into it with. Initially, it was a struggle to get people to understand that it's not just about a garment but about the entire look. The process took time, took a lot of hard work, many hours of work and a lot of patience to prove it by your job.

"All the hard work evolved into me starting a label -- something which I never ever thought of."

He further adds: "The defination of fashion also keeps changing as trends keep changing and mindsets keeps changing. For me, fashion is also a lot of variations in one single day and coping with that enjoying cooking with that and stressing with that but really really loving that to."

The designer who has styled who's who of Bollywood has worked with "four generation of actors", the latest being Jaahnvi Kapoor, Tara Sutaria, Sara Ali Khan and Ananya Panday among others. He, however, feels that even though it is important to match up with the high pace of today's generation, it is also important to maintain one's belief.

"Today, I'm working with a generation which is so high-tech, so fast. Everything is instant. Everything is now. You see a garment, you post it right now. The fate of it is decided right then. It's the same for a movie. It's a hit or a flop, everybody's discussing everything. However, I think it's very important to maintain your belief. It is always something that my 30 years of yet being around has taught me."

"This is the fourth generation of actors and the fourth generation of actors that I'm working with. My 30 years in the industry stands for patience, it stands for hard work, it stands for resilience, it stands for focus. More than anything else, it also stands for evolving, it also stands for moving with time. Even for my label, which this July completes 15 years ago, this is an important year of moving even further in terms of whether craft whether it is a cut," Malhotra told IANSlife on the sidelines of the 15th Blenders Pride Fashion Tour, held in Hyderabad, where he presented his first collection of the year.

Commenting about his association, the designer said: "The Blenders Pride Fashion Tour is all about newness and also for me. It's my first collection of the year and it is speaks all about celebration because for me, this is a very important year as well. It's 15 years of my label and business this year. The collection is all about summer 2020 and it's all about destination wedding -- celebration of Indian couture and India evening wear.

"I see today's brides are more experimental in terms of cuts and flare. Some of them love thread work like I posted a quite versatile or wanting to wear different clothes and I think that's what the entire collection speaks about. Celebrating a lot of artwork from Kashmir, which is a lot of work that I do as a signature and you see a lot of interesting intricate sequence work. You see a lot of flare, but I think that the collection largely is all about the destination wedding for summer," he said.

"I'm giving different colour palette to the brides. It's not just about flowers and leaves as summer si always looked at it like that, but it is a lot of abstract. There are designs that are really mosaic. It's a lot of inspired by architecture. And that's why I wanted the set also little architectural. While it's beautiful, it has architectural element."

The menswear collection is different from what I have done before, he says. "It's completely different with the cuts, even with the embroidery on bridal sherwanis. There's lot of cord and intricate thread work, which is something new for me this year."

(Puja Gupta can be contacted at puja.g@ians.in)

Source: IANS