Women are AK-OK

Anamika Khanna’s clothing designs are instantly recognised for the choice of colour and craft, but her own wardrobe remains a uniform of black and white. Illustration/Uday Mohite

In a 2018 TED Talk titled, Confluence in Conflict, Anamika Khanna said she started her career as an underdog. "I was this no-fashion-degree girl from a ‘village' called Calcutta... compared to the Delhi-s and the Bombay-s." Between launching her namesake brand in the early '90s to now, the couturier has stayed rooted to a holistic mix of intuition and nerve, and a single-minded focus on India.

Khanna, 49, is considered one of the pillars of global Indian style, along with a few male designers, of course, whose catwalk careers coincided with the launch of the country's first organised fashion week in 2000. So, when it came to celebrating the coming together of Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) and Lakmé Fashion Week (led by Rise Worldwide) after a 15-year split, it's little surprise that the organisers chose her to open the joint fashion season with a primetime 8 pm slot on March 16. She calls it a fantastic opportunity for two reasons. "The coming together of FDCI and LFW is comforting. Secondly, I'm enjoying the liberties that a digital platform allows. The pandemic has made us all realise the fragility of life itself. With my collection, I want to highlight the value of preserving our textiles; they are precious. The lockdown also compelled me to rethink certain decisions: why did I showcase 25 outfits at a show, for instance. Was it to make a point? [There's] no need for insecurity," she says over a call from Kolkata where she continues to live and work.

Actor and muse to Anamika Khanna, Sonam Kapoor wore the couturier's ensemble at Cannes in 2014. Pic/Getty Images

The notes on 2020's reflections appear to be falling into place. Her long-anticipated flagship store now has an address in Mumbai's eclectic neighbourhood of Kala Ghoda. The Anamika Khanna bridal wear collection - she also produces a menswear line and an athleisure label AK-OK - that will be digitally streamed this week, hopes to reconnect us with the thrill of dressing up while invoking opulence in fashion.

"It's about feeling a slight ray of hope, which is a positive thing," she says.

Khanna's work is informed by an inimitable perspective on the Indian design and crafts history, and she is responsible for so many innovative styles that we take for granted: dressing up men in skirts; slicing the six-yard to team it with trousers.

Khanna says she is inspired by a sense of preservation, and has developed and contemporised Indian textiles in her new collection titled, Timeless the World. (In photo) Model Candice Pinto in an Anamika Khanna saree paired with trousers at Lakmé Fashion Week in 2009. Pic/Getty Images

Her ensemble for actor Sonam Kapoor Ahuja at Cannes in 2014 ushered in a sort of new feminine minimalism that saw the trouser shape borrowed from the ubiquitous dhoti, the Marathi nauvari nudging the gossamer drape, and the Edwardian-style cape rounding off a textbook red carpet snap.

For this writer, it was how she tidily coupled shirts with pussy bow ties, and updated the familiar closet staples - plain-white pyjama-kurta with intricate cutwork capes and waistcoats - during a Summer 2011 presentation that confirmed her as an authority on modern, blissful clothes for women. This was way before fashion fell in love with the real woman. "It stopped being just fashion a long time ago. There's a freedom in not following trends, and mismatching your outfits. There is a surprising harmony in unremarkable choices," she says.

It's this sort of contradiction that she thrives on. She refuses to stay in her lane; is eager to explore how a woman thinks and feels rather than corralling her to flog a statement look. "When you dress interesting, you feel interesting."

She is very much a woman of today. And it's her gender, she believes, which makes all of this possible. When women design clothes for women, it makes a "100 per cent difference". Women designers understand the female body and its many moods and layers, better; what they may want to hide or reveal. "It does not matter if a woman is 20 or 70, or if she is dressing for other women or for men; she wants to feel sexy, not always look it," she reasons.

The pandemic isn't over and neither are its learnings. But things are bouncing back. "India is the land of weddings, I won't deny, so bridal wear is important. It's within the framework of my diverse clothing labels, including an upcoming home line, I want to create a legacy of honest, innovative design."