Celebrated Indian designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee, who has dressed up A-listers like Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Alia Bhatt on their wedding day, believes he’s being stereotyped as this “thoroughbred intellectual”.
But there’s more to him than that snobby label, says the Kolkata-born couturier who has his own clothing store in New York and stocks his jewellery at Bayt By Damas in Dubai.
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00:00Do I really enjoy fashion? No, I don't, but I enjoy creating beautiful things and that's got nothing to do with fashion.
00:06You know, fashion is marketing, it's not creativity.
00:13I think that modern luxury is not about things that you just buy, which is expensive and hoard in stock,
00:18but modern luxury is about things that are of great value because you can use them again and again.
00:23The high jewellery language worldwide needed to change and there are many people disrupting it in different ways.
00:29So, this is my disruption. India never really had branded jewellery because you know,
00:33in India we always bought jewellery with the idea of hoarding wealth,
00:41but you know, it was never bought with the idea of consumption.
00:44It was always bought with the idea of investment, but if consumption and investment can be put together,
00:49that's the future of modern investment.
00:52The phase that we are going through right now is unusual only because we have gone through a very unusual circumstance.
00:57Whether this phase, this is a phase, that's why we call it a phase and not a moment.
01:02I mean, not time, like whether this phase is going to truly define what's going to happen in the next few years is yet to be seen.
01:11I think anything that's going to happen in fashion for the next five or six years is not going to define what's going to happen in fashion in the next 20 years.
01:18I'm very, very fluid because you know, for me, something has to excite me.
01:23I have a very volatile instinct and I have trained myself to listen to it again and again.
01:28Following your instincts actually make you happy.
01:30I put my Bollywood chapters to rest in the sense that you know, it was a phase, I enjoyed it, I did it.
01:35I'm a person who is constantly evolving and I think there is a time when it was important.
01:44I think this is a time when we need to evolve to bigger and better things.
01:50The idea of India cannot be just controlled or projected by Bollywood alone.
01:56There's so much more to India than this Bollywood.
01:58And I think, you know, working too much with Bollywood makes people's idea about India very myopic.
02:03And that is something that I don't like.
02:05You know, I love Bollywood, I love the soft power of what it has done to the world.
02:10Yeah, but India is not a sum total of Bollywood and cricket.
02:15There is so much more to India than just that.
02:17One of the biggest things that I'm very grateful about, I enjoy my money.
02:21I've made a lot of money in my life.
02:22I enjoy my money, but you know, tomorrow if every penny was to be taken away from me,
02:28I would never think about it again.
02:30I would never look back.
02:31So I'm not attached to money.
02:32So when you're not attached to money, it gives you a lot of clarity and to be able to understand what your real needs are.
02:39I was never attached to money, even when I had no money.
02:43I don't think I would have built Sabya if I didn't have, if I was not ambivalent to money.
02:49For a lot of people who have really done, and I don't want to put myself up there with them,
02:54but I'm saying a lot of people who really have done great things in life,
02:59they have done not because they needed the money, but they wanted to do better things.
03:04Do I really enjoy fashion? No, I don't.
03:07But I enjoy creating beautiful things and that's got nothing to do with fashion.
03:11You know, fashion is marketing, it's not creativity.
03:15I do clothes, I don't do fashion.
03:17You do fashion when clothes are multiplied with marketing.
03:20Do we not do marketing? Yes, we do.
03:22But you know, fashion is a separate thing.
03:25Fashion will only tell you, buy this today to make it not relevant tomorrow,
03:30so they can buy something else tomorrow.
03:32My middle class moralities and probably my sense of self doesn't allow me to do that.
03:38Why do you want to throw away and discard something beautiful that you have made
03:41and people have paid tons of money?
03:43Somewhere down the line, I think you need to understand
03:45what is good evolution and what is bad evolution.
03:47For me, good evolution in bridal wear is to make sure that you work with fabrics
03:52in such a way that you still give the look but don't have to weigh people down.
03:55So that people have more mobility and comfort.
03:59What happens, we suffer because of our vanity, because we all want to look good.
04:03But if you could make clothing that catered to vanity,
04:09but yet at the same time also had comfort,
04:11because you know, you have hit the golden spot.
04:14That's the most difficult thing to do because people look the best when they are comfortable.
04:18There is only one word that defines good brands from mediocre brands.
04:23It's called integrity.
04:24A white shirt and denim is not only deceptive and charming,
04:29but it also becomes a gate pass to many other places depending on how you put it together.
04:33For me, white is a very, it's a very dress up color.
04:39It's very difficult to do white and shades of white.
04:42And I also think that it's very strong and pristine.
04:48And like I said, that's also a color that can, you know like,
04:52for me, everything right now borders on versatility.
04:56How can I use something in many different ways?
04:58And why white really lends itself?
05:00Leonard Cohen's music.
05:02You know, when I listen to his music, it opens up characters and fictional places
05:06and ideas inside my head.
05:10So, you know, like when I have to go to a place for inspiration, I always go to music.
05:16Spring, summer, because I come from a tropical country.
05:19And I am also someone who gets very happy and enchanted by sunshine and sunlight and warmth.
05:26I don't do cold places very well.
05:28And I think spring is also such a joyous season.
05:31I would definitely do a very, very cozy outer jacket.
05:38Maybe a puffer that would double up as a very comfortable sofa
05:43on which you can sit and munch popcorn and watch TV.
05:45You know, we think that aliens exist in dark places.
05:48And they are lonely and alone.
05:52So I would definitely do something which is a brocaded silk with lots of floral patterns
05:59because I think we need to show them happiness.
06:01That belongs to our part of the world.
06:03I have seven dogs.
06:04I would definitely design clothing.
06:07You know, inspiration starts at home, from my dogs first.
06:12But honestly, if I were to answer this question right,
06:16I would say that I would not do it at all.
06:18Because you see, they are just so beautifully made by nature.
06:24I cover them up.
06:25Growing up, I was fascinated by Spider-Man.
06:28If I were to dress him for his wedding,
06:31I would probably just give him a white linen shirt with a pair of white linen pants
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