Quick on the heels of a fashion company partnering with Tarun Tahiliani on an accessible menswear label, the couturier says he might be ready to look at a new customer profile
The diffusion line was showcased last week at the 19th century Brijrama Palace in Varanasi
Tarun Tahiliani often repeats sections of his quotes, but he makes it mean something utterly novel each time. “We are all contradictions, a million mutinies,” he had said about India when interviewed against the backdrop of the 25-year anniversary of his eponymous couture brand in February 2020.
ADVERTISEMENT
Twenty-two months later, the India sentiment has a different sort of meaning. “Instead of million mutinies as VS Naipaul called it, we need to focus on some homogeneity in our diversity, and this is going to be our story,” Tahiliani told the media at the launch of Tasva, a new bridge-to-luxury menswear brand he launched last week in Varanasi in partnership with Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd (ABFRL).
This may well turn out to be a canny commercial move. But Tahiliani, so often makes the India semantic work by setting up a pattern of predictability before breaking it with an unexpected punchline: “I want to dress the real India, enough of quack-quack”.
It’s a great achievement, surely, to reach the age of 60 (he hits the big 6-0 next July) and still want to take on the gargantuan task of ‘dressing India’. “[Turning 60] it’s scary though I don’t feel it. I’m much wilder in my head. I’m excited about design and business.”
Tarun Tahiliani
As the appetite for strategic brand investments by homegrown fashion companies like ABFRL and Reliance Brands Limited (RBL) continues to buoy the Indian designer wear market, it’s also shifting the code of what it means to belong—inside and out on clothes. ABFRL plans to roll out Tasva in 70-plus stores across India next year, a timely respite as fashion brands continue to grapple with COVID and the country’s fractured economic optimism. “Because India was always known as the textiles and export hub, we made a leap into the Western ready-to-wear sooner than in the Indian wear market. The challenge now is to make menswear as effortless, accessible and integrated as Western ready-to-wear,” explains Tahiliani.
It’s a sun-speckled, garden-variety December afternoon in Varanasi. Yet the scene inside the handsomely walled Brijrama Palace—built in the early 19th century for the Maharaja of Darbhanga—is nothing short of an uprising of masculine ostentation. Models range from 20-somethings to one suave gent in his 50s. They walk the castellated interiors and onto the balcony area in pared-down but well-cut jackets from bundi to Nehru styles, drape-front kurtas, churidars and dhoti trousers, hoping to catch the interest of a gaggle of journalists. Not your usual catwalk act. Often fashion shows are deceptive, Tahiliani thinks. “We decided to show clothes up close [to the viewer as possible] so that you can touch and feel the fabric, ask questions and engage with fashion.”
Ashish Dikshit
As the afternoon trips into a rosy evening, so does the mood of dandyism; casual Indian wear languidly turning over to dressy, indulgent styles over five capsule presentations. It carries Tahiliani’s craft-core stamp of beautiful fabrics and a rich mix of structure and drapes. With Sada Mast Raho (“It’s a cute play on the word must-have”) as its tagline, the collection retails between Rs 1,599 (kurtas) and Rs 74,999 (Banaras brocade sherwani with hand-embroidery, sequin and dabka detail). It’s good news for men who love to bro down with owning the TT label, and his detail-oriented fetishes.
Kumar Mangalam Birla’s ABFRL, after decades of focusing on the formalwear segment with brands such as Van Heusen, Allen Solly and Peter England, is looking to diversify. “[…] In the last few years, we have started to see that Indian men are behaving strangely, you know. I am not talking about sherwanis and more traditional stuff. Their clothing choices were influenced by Indo-Western styles,” shared ABFRL’s managing director, Ashish Dikshit. The company has acquired 33 per cent stake in Tahiliani’s existing business, mostly focused on demi-couture, for Rs 67 crore (approx. $9 million). For Tahiliani, working on Tasva has consumed most of 2021, a year which he describes as “monumental with many realisations”. “It’s been a great year for professional growth, but it also taught me to be super organised,” he chuckles.
Here, he shares some of this year’s highlights.
2021 began with…
“The announcement of the partnership with ABFRL in February. And in April I was hospitalised with COVID-19. I wrote letters that I never got to write to my friends and family telling them how much they meant to me. Soon after I hit send on my email, I was thankfully well and back home. I am glad I did it, though.”
In August, Dr Tanaya Narendra known as Dr Cuterus on social media alleged that Tarun Tahiliani’s store officials had body shamed her
“It was ridiculous [accusation of shaming]. If we had made a mistake, I’d have apologised. We were barely emerging out of the pandemic and didn’t have a full gamut of sizes in our bridal stock. Neither could we replicate a couture piece in three weeks. When situations like these arise, instead of misleading the client about how long it will take to customise a product, we choose to tell them that it will not happen in the timeline they require; it cannot be called fat/body shaming. The news was everywhere; views were aired without checking facts. It’s a different tribe of people [on social media] whose job is to troll. It’s a modern form of gossip except that stays in the air, this gets documented online.”
“To free Indian men, dress and engage with them so that Indian fashion is not relegated to being about costumes at a wedding”
“When I signed up with ABFRL, they sent samples of what’s already available in the premium Indian wear market. I was shocked at the quality that passes off in this country. Garments were stiff and heavily fused; where is the softness? If tailored the right way, Indian wear can be modern and comfortable. In keeping with our weather, we have used fabrics like khadi, machine-woven jacquard, cotton velvet, spun silk and viscose blends. The intent is to free Indian men, dress them and engage with them so that Indian fashion is not relegated to being about costumes at a wedding.”
The India love story
“It’s [India] a kind of nasha for the mind. When I was studying in America, I dreamed about India. Now I work out of an urban village in Delhi and still romanticise about India. After the Varanasi trip, I’m dreaming about the ghats, its people, their drapes; nobody wears Zara there. This year has made me realise that I don’t have to travel abroad to be happy. We were all on this treadmill, running, racing. This year, I decided to get off of it.”
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
