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‘Clothes without borders’
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Former classmates Roopa and Kanick chat about featuring in the Lakme Fashion Week among other things fashion
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Photo: K. Gopinathan
FASHION FUNDA Roopa and Kanick stepped into the world of fashion because they were never satisfied with their earlier jobs
Two scrawny and initially shy youngsters greet us at the house quietly tucked away in Indiranagar.
Only, it’s not a house, but a workshop abuzz with tailors and embroiderers cutting and sewing assiduously. Mannequins don some lovely creations in gold and black, maroons and browns, and surprise bright blues that will soon be fitted onto models who will scorch the ramps in Mumbai.
Roopa Pemmaraju and Kanick Raj are bubbly 28-year-old designers from Bangalore who’ve been selected to feature in the Gen Next section of the Lakme Fashion Week 2007, which starts off on October 13 in Mumbai.
They will be taking their Spring/Summer 2008 collection UnPatriotica to the show.
It’s only been a year since they started their designer label ‘Haldi’ for women.
Classmates from their fine arts course days at the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Roopa and Kanick dabbled in various things before fashion brought them back together. They agree to disagree on everything and that’s how the conversation begins. BHUMIKA K. listens in:
(How they got to LFW)
Kanick: She’s the one who started it… (Pointing to Roopa)
Roopa: Oh really?
Kanick: You saw it in the papers, no?
Roopa: Sheee! No! I was watching LFW on TV one day and we thought we were too young to be in it.
Kanick: Yet, she was saying “Next season we are gonna be there!”
Roopa: In Chennai I met designer Chaitanya Rao and asked him how we could participate. We had no clue how to get there. We were just six months old with our new label Haldi.
Kanick: Yeah…only our first collection had been released.
Roopa: We sent our profile across.
Kanick: We sent brochures. We didn’t know we had to send garments! So then we actually stitched the designs, fixed a photo shoot. We did the photos in the background of old Bangalore. Our concept was the renaissance, where clothes have a flow, with a Greek influence. The day of the deadline, we made our brochure (both laugh in disbelief) and then the last date was extended!
Roopa: We kept interacting with the LFW representatives… it was a 35-day wait before we knew we were selected by the panel.
(College pals make a comeback)
Kanick: We were shocked because neither of us have a fashion background.
Roopa: I was a visual merchandiser and he was into advertising with O&M.
Kanick: We started with three tailors...,
Roopa: (Instantly shoots back) Not even three. Only one tailor, one master and one embroiderer.
Kanick: Basically we were never satisfied with what we were doing in our jobs earlier. There was constant pressure and finally no appreciation for what we did.
Roopa: We then wanted to start something on our own… maybe an advertising firm…
Kancik: In the meanwhile we had started doing different things… drawing, painting, sketching.
Roopa: I used to work for various brands like Tommy Hillfiger and used to do display windows for stores. He used to create ads for brands like Allen Solly. So we did have a connect. And I said let’s start out on our own.
Kanick: In the beginning we didn’t know anything!
Roopa: We only knew sketching and designing. Here we had to actually cut, make patterns and do it all on clothes.
Kanick: She’s strong in colours and I’m good at patterns
(Nervous about going to LFW?)
Roopa: No… (Looking at Kanick intently) Are you nervous?
Kanick: (Almost in protest) No!
Roopa: Seriously, we were… when we met up the biggies
Kanick: Then Narendra Kumar said, “You are here because you’ve done good”.
Roopa: He told us, “It is you who have to set the trends”.
(Back to their collection UnPatriotica)
Roopa: We both fight a lot but at the end we agree on something. Even today we were fighting over who will do the accessories, who’ll do the shoes. We finally made a calendar. We dye the fabric on our own — the colours, patterns and prints — on fabric we buy.
Kanick: If you take Indians, you can categorise them by the kind of clothes they wear. There is a class-ism by which you can identify people. Point is you should not be able to… in Bangalore right now, for example, people from various cultures are here but you can’t tell the difference because they all wear similar Western clothing.
Roopa: Through our collection UnPatriotica what we’re trying to say is that these are clothes without borders — anybody can wear anything. Our materials are all organic — jute, silk-cotton, crepes, tissue, organza and chiffons.
Kanick: We’ve also used net materials and their variations.
Roopa: It’s all about blending them.
Kanick: They are all very well-balanced and the mix gives us one whole thing.
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
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