“I’m not for the faint-hearted,” says Indian designer Manish Arora. One look at his designs and you know he’s not simply being dramatic.
From his gauzy Day-Glo dresses and hologram tops to sequinned skirts and heavily embroidered trousers, Arora’s aesthetic can be summed up in three words: more is more.
“The notion of ‘too much’ is so western,” he says. “For me, nothing is too much.”
Online publication Jezebel described one of Arora's previous collections as "a galactic pastry rave populated by space princesses in iridescent bike shorts with fanny packs".
Arora, 42, takes no offence that his work is often trivialised – bordering on lampooning. In fact, he prefers not to be taken seriously.
“I actually feel bad when people dismiss my work as drama,” he says. “I’m just having fun. It’s my sense of humour.”
It's a point of view that the industry has embraced. Arora, who has been anointed by the UK's Daily Telegraph as "the John Galliano of India", is arguably the most successful Indian designer today.
“Few Indian fashion designers have really made their mark overseas, but Manish Arora is possibly the most famous exception,” a recent BBC report suggested.
But could Arora create India’s first international fashion brand? Quite likely, judging by the critical reaction to his show on October 1 at Paris Fashion Week, where he showcased an exceptional range of skirts, tops and minidresses exploding with colour and embellishment.
Gone were the raver-girl tracksuits and bubblegum-bright shorts of seasons past. Maximalist Arora has gone luxe, probably both as an artistic decision and a strategic business step. Vogue's review of the show praised Arora's "departure into adult territory".
"The collection draws from the disco era – I call it 'disco gypsy'," Arora told The National three days before his Paris show. "I'm balancing the mix of gypsy and metallic disco, with a zing of Japanese manga."
Such multi-hued influences are the secrets to Arora’s success – and why, compared with his Indian contemporaries, he’s gone beyond being what he calls “the ethnic, kitschy guy”. While his garments are constructed the Indian way – he employs a workforce of 250 in New Delhi, where he was born and raised – his designs do not look strictly Indian. They look like they could be worn by anyone, anywhere.
Anyone who has the personality to match Arora's clothing, that is. His growing list of celebrity clientele includes Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Sonam Kapoor, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj and Heidi Klum. The latest addition is British-Caribbean disco-punk singer Ebony Bones, who is wearing Arora's clothing in the album art for her upcoming EP, Bread & Circus Part 1.
"Right now, everyone in London looks like a Kardashian," Bones told The New York Times last week in an interview for which she was photographed wearing a headpiece by Arora. "You see it upheld as the ideal of femininity in fashion; it's so boring."
While Arora unashamedly aims to please a global market, he says his home country remains his biggest influence.
“My culture and crafts deeply influence me – I love them,” he says, referring to his consistent use of traditional, handmade Indian embroidery, appliqué and beading, season after season. “I’m not sure if this really is a conscious effort to preserve traditions and carry them forward, although I’m really glad if I’m contributing to that.”
While mostly based in Paris, Arora prefers to have all his garments produced back home.
“They’re all hand-cut,” he says. “It takes 20 days to make one skirt, with five people working on it.”
Arora launched his label in 1997. Three years later, he showed during the first-ever India Fashion Week. His big break came in 2004, during the fifth edition of IFW. That collection, inspired by an Indian princess on a trip to Thailand (“a story I made up”), stunned the audience, which included a representative from the British Fashion Council. A year later, Arora made his debut at London Fashion Week.
“That changed my life,” he says. “For an Indian designer at that time, it was something unheard of.” Four years later, none other than Didier Grumbach, the president of the French Fashion Federation, invited Arora to present at Paris Fashion Week. Immediately after taking his bow on the runway, Arora retreated to a corner backstage and started crying.
“The build-up was too much,” he says. Grumbach described that spring/summer 2008 collection as “perfect and provocative”.
Now, Arora is focusing not only on showcasing fashion, but selling it, too. He says the plan for the coming years is to establish stand-alone retail spaces around the world.
His clothes are already on sale in stores in 17 countries, including Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where they are available at Saks Fifth Avenue, S*uce and Valleydez in Dubai.
Arora has his eyes set particularly on China, where his garments are sold in 13 stores.
“It is our biggest market, where we get 42 per cent of our yearly sales,” he says.
Seeing my jaw drop slightly, Arora adds: “Thanks, but there is still a long way to go, I feel. I’m going to continue to explore new avenues, while enjoying the journey. And I’m not going to stop.”
• For more information, visit www.manisharora.com
artslife@thenational.ae
