Tarun Tahiliani at India Couture Week: leading without a showstopper Premium

Tarun Tahilian’s show at India Couture Week, which concluded this week, had the refined aesthetic and sculptured fits we now take for granted, but the intricately embroidered lehengas, saris, and jackets were also backed by strong craftsmanship, a fusion of chikankari and kasheedakari, and references to byzantine art, Egyptian jaalis, and Persian motifs

Less is more, but nothing is still nothing. Stylist Louw Kotze repurposes a Donatella Versace quote to describe Tarun Tahiliani, 60, a ‘maximalist’ who is “well researched and knows his own signature”. Tarun’s show at India Couture Week, which concluded on Wednesday, had the refined aesthetic and sculptured fits we now take for granted, but the intricately embroidered lehengas, saris, and jackets were also backed by strong craftsmanship, a fusion of chikankari and kasheedakari, and references to Byzantine art, Egyptian doors, and Persian motifs.

Also, when most of the 16 couturiers who showcased at ICW invested in what is now de rigueur, the Bollywood showstopper, Tarun chose to close his show with his core design team instead. With the going fee for these actors at over ₹50 lakh (up from approximately ₹10 lakh pre-pandemic), it seemed the eloquent couturier, along with other old-timers like Suneet Varma, JJ Valaya, and Rajesh Pratap, was making a statement about letting the clothes speak for themselves. That many of the showstoppers, from actors Sara Ali Khan to Disha Patani and Kiara Advani, had ironically been garbed in bralettes and thigh-high slit skirts on the runway, is another story altogether. It did lead to a rash of memes, one likening them to variations of Indian cottage cheese, and it did get media coverage.

But Tarun, in his inimitable way, chuckled and carried on. After all, as FDCI chief Sunil Sethi puts it, “Tarun holds his position with the big spenders of couture and yet you also see him in the mass market today. No one has been able to replicate this.” He is referring to the designer’s 2021 partnership with Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail and the successful sub-brand, Tasva, for men. Tarun, meanwhile, has a busy year ahead. A tome with Roli Books is to be launched later this year, more Tasva store openings, perhaps an India Art Fair outing for his wall art, and next year, an exhibition with Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum, the first of its kind for an Indian designer. “And I am trying to take a piano exam in the middle of all of this, for my sanity,” he adds. More from the couturier:

Your ‘New Man’ in this collection, For Eternity, is fluid and avant-garde, with a nod to the 90s. Is menswear having its moment in India?

I would say that Indian men have become super fit as opposed to my generation who were very simple in what they wore. Then they went the whole ‘over the top’ Indian route. Now they are global and fit, and they are synthesising our culture with tailoring and what they are exposed to in the West. We are a very global economy now, at this level of consumption, and I really feel it’s the new man.

You’ve opened your atelier to groups of people, confident about them interacting with your employees, getting into your business. A fellow journalist called it the ‘open kitchen’ concept.

People wonder aloud at me showing everyone who my designers are. I say, ‘please come in, it’s an open book’. We work painstakingly on those clothes, it’s not as if someone can walk out and recreate them. Also, everything is on the Internet. I have very strong beliefs in what we do. This forces standards of hygiene and excellence. There will always be someone who will try and poach an employee. But we are building a culture. I am also inspired by Brunello Cucinelli [the Italian luxury creative director transformed his hometown village in Umbria to help the locals and calls himself a temporary guardian of this place] and how that town runs. That’s what I want for this company. For that you have to have it open.