TARUN TAHILIANI

Tarun Tahiliani is a noted Indian fashion designer. With his wife Sailaja
'Sal' Tahiliani, he co-founded Ensemble, India’s first multi-designer
boutique in 1987, followed by Tahiliani Design studio in 1990. Based in
Delhi, he is best known for his ability to infuse Indian craftsmanship and
textile heritage with European tailored silhouette. His signature is to
combine traditional aesthetics with modern design. Over the years, he also
became known for his bridal wear
Of late, Tahiliani has taken on several projects in interior design. He has
designed interiors for hotels (such as The Sofala, Goa),`- restaurants (the
Aish at the Park, Hyderabad), resorts and homes, and has even begun to
event design for Indian weddings. Tarun Tahiliani is to introduce a designer
TV made by Vu Technologies.

EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY

-TARUN TAHILIANI AND SAILAJA

Tahiliani was born and brought up in Mumbai in extended Sindhi family. His
father Admiral R H Tahiliani, was with the Indian Navy, thus his family
including sister Tina Tahiliani were posted to various locations in
India. After studying initially at Campion School, Mumbai, then during his
teenage, his father was posted to Delhi, then he went to study at The Doon
School, a boarding school in Dehradun, passing out in 1980. After his
schooling he joined St. Stephen's College in Delhi as an honours student.
However, not finding it challenging enough, he left it after a year and then
went on US, where he studied at Vassar College, New York for one
year,[9] and went on to obtain a degree in Business Management from
the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania.
His father, later served as the Chief of the Naval Staff of the Indian
Navy between 1984 and 1987 and as the Governor of Sikkim between
1990 and 1994. His mother Jaswanti Tahiliani was the first female engineer
in Mumbai, who studied at VJTI, Mumbai. She died of cancer, while he was
still studying at Doon School, a few years later his father remarried to
Meera.
While studying in US, through a common friend, he met Sailaja (Sal), an
economics student at the University of Pennsylvania, and his future wife.
They married soon after his return to India in 1980. Sal, who was brought
up in New York, had a short modelling career wherein she even modelled
for Pierre Cardin, before heading Tahiliani retail operations. The couple
have two sons.

CAREER

-ENSEMBLE STORE, MUMBAI

On returning to India, he first joined the family business in oil-field
equipments. Eventually, in 1987 he and Sailaja opened the first multi-
designer boutique in India, 'Ensemble' with help of designer Rohit Khosla in
Mumbai. The stored featured works of five designers Abu Jani & Sandeep
Khosla, Rohit Khosla, Anuradha Mafatlal, American fashion designer Neil
Bieff and label Anaya, by Anita Shivdasani and Sunita Kapoor, Anil
Kapoor’s wife and their own label, Ahilian. By now, he had started
sketching however he was still untrained a designer, thus in 1991, he went
to Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York to study designing.
After his return he shifted business to Delhi. When in 1995, British
heiress Jemima Khan wore one of his outfit for her wedding to Imran Khan,
his work was first noticed.
Today, after over 25 years, Ensemble has stores both in Mumbai and
Delhi, and Tahiliani runs the chain with his sister Tina Tahiliani Parikh, who
joined the business in 1990.
Tarun also worked with Save the Children India to urge the government to
increase the health budget to 3 per cent ahead of the budget
announcement.
FAMOUS WORKS

With his work showcased internationally, from Milan to London; Tarun

Tahiliani is also one of the founding member of India’s official fashion week
governing body, Fashion Design Council of India. Tarun’s well known works
which were also showcased at international fashion weeks throughout the
world are ‘The Rubaiyat’ and ‘Kumbhback’. His collection, ‘Kumbhback’ was
inspired by traditional Mahan Kumbh Mela which included outfits designed
with an incredibly amazing color palette of sunset tones like amber, subtle
rust, saffron, deep red with hues of aubergine, pink, blue and black. Tarun
is also an active member of Save the Children India which urged the Indian
government to raise the health budget up to three percent prior to the
announcement of budget.

KUMBHBACK
As millions wait to take a dip in the holy waters during the 55-day
long festival at the Maha Kumbh in Allahabad, fashion devotees
waited for quite long in order to catch a glimpse of master couturier,
Tarun Tahiliani’s ‘Kumbhback’ collection (inspired by his own journey
to the Mela this year) on Day 2 at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion
Week Autumn/Winter 2013.

SADHUS AND SADHVIS ON THE RAMP

What a delight it was to see the models sashaying down the runway in a
‘sadhu/sadhvi’ avatar and reflecting the many shades of the Kumbh in their
outfits ranging from the sunset hues and rusts, while gradually transforming
into deep reds and ambers blended with hints of blues, aubergines and pinks.
It looked as if a slice of the panoramic Kumbh Mela had been exactly
replicated on the ramp by the reputed designer. Tahiliani’s exotic, yet earthy
clothing line evoked the spirit of divinity through the sleek silhouettes and
exquisite structure that together, combined to create a visual appeal that
promised to linger in the minds of the viewers even after the show.
FABRIC AND DESIGNS

An intelligent use of fabrics like gossamer silks, cashmere wool knits, crepe
wool, and silk velvets gave the ensembles the much needed dramatic effect
while adhering to simplicity at the same time. With saffron as the dominant
colour and Kumbh motif as the DNA of the collection, the displayed garments
effortlessly shifted from layered coats, bandhani sarees, anarkalis, and skirts
to ‘Rabadi’ jackets, gilets, tunics and more. The sensual touch to the apparel
was added by the beautiful ‘rudraksh’- infused jewellery in the form of long
necklaces, anklets, wrist bands, chunky bangles and also dangling tassels
hanging loose from lehengas and concept sarees. A range of possibilities in
the looks and an uninhibited mix and match of textures and designs
confirmed the strength of this collection in terms of wearability and style.
Pre-stitched saree drape in blue, bandhani with shibori and ajrak, elegant
rouche flounce dresses in hand-textured chiffon, sheer silk jackets with tops
and palazzo pants showcased the emotion of the Kumbh Mela in styling,
pattern, embroidery and colour. Laser technique, zardozi, appliqué, jamewar,
tie-and-dye, animal prints were other significant characteristics that
reconstructed the Kumbh mystery and unlocked the faith of saffron.
DESIGNER SPEAK
When asked what motivated him to put up a show like this, Tarun Tahiliani
could not contain his excitement about his life-changing tour to the Kumbh
and said, “I feel we have to train our eyes to appreciate what is aesthetic.
Fashion is more than the revival of ‘royalty’; it is about understanding life in
its everyday aspect. My collection is about celebrating and recognising
individuality. The draped form evokes sensuality like nothing else. Unlike
western dress, it gives a unique expression to every human form that
embraces it. And this is exemplified at the Kumbh and recreated in my
designs,” he suggests. Drapes wrapping women’s bodies of different shapes
and sizes ensure an original and unique appeal as far as Tarun Tahiliani is
concerned. “If three women wear the same saree, they can still manage to
look different (due to the draping technique) but may appear to look quite
similar even with three different dresses,” explains Tahiliani. One interesting
thing that the designer experimented with sarees and lehengas is this that he
introduced the concept of wraps in cashmere that doubled up as shawls,
dupattas or stoles given the Autumn-Winter theme in mind.

Front row glitterati: Guests from the fashion fraternity were in full
attendance. Payal Jain, Kavita Bhartia and Anupama Dayal among others were
spotted applauding the efforts of their designer friend Tarun Tahiliani.
 THE RUBAIYAT
He organized his first solo show called ‘Rubaiyat’ at a Gala Fundraiser event
held in Dorchester Hotel, London in 1994. The year 2003 marked an
important milestone in his career as an Indian Fashion Designer when he
became the first designer from country to get the invitation to exhibit his
collection at the grand international platform, The Milan Fashion Week. Later
he went on to attend and put forth his collections at several international
fashion shows including New York, Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Moscow,
Karachi, South Africa and many other countries.

Rubaiyat had all the muslim based bridal dresses. The color palette had the
mixture of warm as well as color, orange red and white was the main focus of
the show.
 MARKET ANALYSIS
While there are no confirmed numbers to back up his impression, a report by by
the financial consulting firm KPMG in 2014 valued India’s wedding services
market at $54 billion. According to one estimate, there are 10 million weddings in
India each year. With India set to become the youngest country in the world by
2020 with a median age of 29 years, the demographic divide will invariably help
the wedding industry grow even bigger.

The women’s-wear market made up approximately 38% of the total apparel

industry, fashion watchdog site IndiaRetailing.com estimated in 2017. Of which
ethnic wear – saris, salwar kameezes and other related wedding wear – was the
principal money earner, amounting to 66% of sales.

According to a 2018 survey conducted by the website Matrimonial.com, 20.22% of

the women participants indicated that they were likely to spend more than Rs 1
lakh on their wedding clothes, while 40.67% of them said they would spend
between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 lakh. The survey also found that 50.98% of the
women and 66.24% of the men spend up to Rs 3 lakh on wedding jewellery.

Lavish weddings are not the domain of solely the fabulously wealthy anymore.
According to Jermina Menon, vice president marketing for Virtuous Retail South
Asia, “on an average, a middle-class family might spend as much up to Rs 10 lakh
to 15 lakh [taking into account the clothes and jewellery]. In destination weddings
or multiple weddings, it could go up to at least Rs 20 lakhs or more.”

Menon’s company stocks popular high street brands, catering to the upper-middle
class and the middle-class sections of Indian society who cannot afford haute
couture like a Sabyasachi or Tahiliani. They have malls in Bengaluru, Surat,
Chandigarh and Chennai. A trend that Menon has observed is that “South Indian
weddings have changed to include a sangeet and a mehendi function”, once seen
only in weddings in North India. “We call it the Yash Chopra effect here in the
South,” Menon said.

Other outlets such as the DLF Mall of India see an increase of up to 30% in profits
during the wedding season. “It’s a big occasion based season for retail,” said
Pushpa Bector, executive vice president and business head, DLF Shopping Malls.
And it’s not just fashion. Even luxury lifestyle hotels are seeing a boom with an
increase in destination weddings. “...This season also means an influx of pre and
post wedding ceremonies and events which adds to the overall revenues,” said
Shikha Singh, director, sales and marketing, at Andaz Delhi, a luxury lifestyle
hotel.

PRICE RANGE AND CATEGORIES

mmm

THE INTERVIEW
1. YOUR CONTEMPORARIES ARE SWAYING TO THE W EST, BUT YOU TAKE
PRIDE IN DOING INDIA N COUTURE…

The Tarun Tahiliani brand is a modern Indian love story. It's about wonderful
traditions, about textile and embroidery. It's about the way millions of hands fashion
things… quite contrary to the Western perception of fashion where the fabric is cut
and tailored in a certain way. Traditionally speaking, in India, the fabric was draped.
The fabric was nurtured and loved, block-printed, embroidered, resist-dyed etc. That's
what inspires me. I try to combine these beautiful Indian techniques that are still
available with a Western notion of cut, construction, fit and finish to make it appeal to
an all-new Indian market and to the world. I stick to my core sensibility — which is
Indian and rearticulate things in a way it appeals to modern tastes.

2. YOUR DAD WAS A NAVY OFFICER, AND LATER A GOVERNOR. YOU DID
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT. HOW DID YOU THINK O F ENTERING THE
FASHION WORLD?

My education might have been a little different if I had grown up in today's times.
When I was growing up, art and fashion were not considered suitable professions. I
was inducted into work at my maternal family business — marketing oil field
equipment! In retrospect, it was the most trying time of my life because it didn't excite
me. My family understood and supported me in my decision to pursue what made me
excited about coming to work every single day.

3. BRIDAL IS YOUR FORTE. WHAT KIND OF CHANG ES DO YOU FORESEE

IN THIS SEGMENT?

I think people are getting tired of sensory overload and the scale of the big fat Indian
weddings. It is time to pull back. Have less, but do it better. I think people will now
focus more on quality rather than quantity. Make it more personal. We will see the
Tarun Tahiliani Bridal Couture Exposition taking the same route.
 4. ENSEMBLE WAS A MAJOR MILESTONE IN RETAIL HISTORY. WHAT
SPURRED YOU ON TO TAKE SUCH A RISK IN THE 1980S?

Must have been a bit of madness! I realised there was incredible talent in India, but no
suitable platform. Design and craftsmanship can be interpreted in a modern way and
made available to Indians. There was no fashion industry then. Ensemble was the
beginning...

5. BUT YOU STARTED YOUR LABEL MUCH LATER — IN 1991.

I started Ensemble in December 1987. I started my own label simultaneously, but saw
the need for education in the formal aspects of design. So, I went back to FIT in 1990
and it was when I came back that I threw myself into developing my design studio.
Since then, I've never really looked back.

6. WHAT DO YOU THINK DESIGNERS CAN DO TO SUSTAIN DYING CRAFT

SKILLS?

Prada, Made In India, and proud of it! When Indian artisans created beautiful,
textured, woven leather pieces for Prada, they were hailed by Miuccia Prada as the
best in the world! Our hand skills are much sought-after. As for the TT brand, Indian
craft is in its DNA. We do everything from hand block-printing, bhandej, chikan,
resham embroidery etc. Designers have to package the past in a chic way.

7. YOU WERE ONE OF THE DESIGNERS FROM HERE TO SHOW AT MILAN.

WHAT'S YOUR CALLING CARD ABROAD?

I try to reinterpret India for an international market. So while you get a glimpse of
India and India's past, it can be worn by a woman in Sao Paolo, Milan or Hong Kong.

8. DESCRIBE THE TT WOMA N.

The typical Tarun woman wants to wear a statement piece in the morning without
shocking anybody. She doesn't want a matching set of anything. She has an individual
sense of style. She wants to travel to the far corners of the earth, and come back with
treasures that she won't find ever again. She reads about vintage fashion and
everything else she can get her hands on. Loves National Geographic as much as she
likes Tehelka.
 9. HOW WAS THE LADY GAG A EXPERIENCE?

There was no greater surprise than to have the curtains go up and to see Lady Gaga
give a captivating performance wearing Tarun Tahiliani! It was especially flattering
that she mentioned towards the end of the concert in New Delhi recently that she
could not wear the clothes she had originally brought with her after she saw Tahiliani.
She completely transformed our signature sari drapes. First into a sarong. Then she
threw the pallu off and eventually performed in the body suit with fish net stockings
and Louboutins. It was her creative genius that made five different looks out of one of
our pieces. The fact that she chose to wear TT not only for the day but also for the
night was an affirmation of our emphasis on fit and finish.

CONCLUSION
From being the first Indian to showcase at Milan Fashion Week in 2005 to
dressing A-listers like Sting, Oprah Winfrey, Elizabeth Hurley, Deepika
Padukone, Shilpa Shetty and Katrina Kaif, Tahiliani today is known for his
unique synergy of design that blends Indian aesthetics with European
craftsmanship. Tahiliani dismisses all celeb-talk with a nonchalant wave of
his hand, “I don’t really design for celebrities, they just pick up my stuff and
get it fitted themselves. I understand that it gets me recognition but it’s just
not my game,” he says.

Arjun Sawhney, his former publicist, calls him a true “man of the world”.
The charm and diplomacy are evident during our meetings, peppered as
they are with playful banter and philosophising about our shared Sindhi
heritage. He has an old-school pomposity about him, which may even be
well-earned. “Intelligence coupled with the ability to converse on any topic
under the sun — food, fashion, politics, music, literature, art — is a winning
combination with his clients,” says Sawhney. A patron of the arts, Tahiliani
used to write a monthly column in First City, a Delhi city magazine.

Even now his eyes crinkle up in delight when he relates an anecdote about
a drunken effort to steal a Raza painting with Shyamolie Verma, a popular
model of her time, from the Taj Hotel’s lobby many years ago. “Oh I love
Raza, his early abstract landscapes even more than the Bindu series. We
could have gone to prison that night for our love for Raza!”
Other designers might draw inspiration from different periods in time, but
the design process, for Tahiliani, is a visceral “collage-like” exercise. He
even went to the Mahakumbh mela to study how the sadhus draped
themselves — an influence noticeable in his 2013 collection. “I was in a
trance at the Kumbh, mesmerised by all these people whose creativity was
enhanced by opiates. This structuring of clothes is in our DNA — I drew
inspirations from a vest and a dhoti-clad swami to the turban of a Haryanvi
people who do it every day but never the same way twice — that’s
couture.” Bored sick of all the Great Gatsby-themed parties that have been
the rage in the past couple of years, Tahiliani now wants to see the rise of a
modern aesthetic where nobody tries to be anybody other than who they
are. “The women I admire for their style — Gayatri Devi, Laila Tyabji,
Elizabeth Taylor, Rekha — they have a trademark, understated elegance.
You can’t be Jodhaa Akbar one day, Bajirao Mastani the next day, Choker
Bali the day after that!”

A typical Tahiliani bride, then, must look like herself — “the best version of
themselves. The only people who overdo it are nouveau (riche).” A source
once close to the designer claims that more than fashionable clothes,
Tahiliani is in the business of selling confidence. “He’s a very astute
businessman and most importantly, he understands human sentiment. He
knows the psychology of marketing, that before you know it, the client is
convinced of tripling her budget to get the perfect look for her big day.” The
same person suggests that Tahiliani is known to drop people from his life
as soon as they stop being useful to him.
Hailed as the Karl Lagerfeld of India by international style icon Isabella
Blow, Tahiliani owns factories in Manesar, Lucknow and Kolkata, and
employs 800-900 people over 50 points of sale in the country that sell both
ready-to -wear and couture. His bridal ensembles cost between Rs 1 lakh
and Rs 25 lakh. The Tarun Tahiliani empire is valued at over Rs 100 crore,
but he declines to confirm that number. “People with taste don’t discuss
what they’re worth!” he grins.

Tahiliani admits he was nudged into designing bridal wear due to a high
demand in the market. However, he has also designed interiors for hotels,
restaurants, hospitals and private residence, events, jewellery, footwear,
watches, even a TV. “It’s the way to put your stamp on a lifestyle — it
interests me and it makes business sense,” he says.
Tahiliani wants to explore his passions beyond bridal wear. The sari needs
to be constantly reinvented, according to him, so that it won’t be relegated
to tradition the way the kimono has been in Japan. He is currently in the
middle of a collaboration with the Singh Twins — British Sikh sisters who
paint traditional miniature paintings with contemporary ideas — for his next
show. “Fashion is a serious thing, and it is my mission is to keep our
heritage alive in a modern way,” says the father of two sons. “I don’t think
it’s cool for Indians to wear western outfits on a daily basis and then
suddenly become maharajas and maharanis on their wedding day. That’s
where we as Indian designers have failed.” Failed? Somehow, the word
does not sit well on Tahiliani.