/ Fashion To Die For

by J P

Fashion To Die For

Apr 04, 2014

ANOKHI Award-winning business and design duo Shantanu and Nikhil dish on their namesake brand.

At the 11th annual ANOKHI anniversary gala this past February in Toronto, Shantanu and Nikhil Mehra showcased their To Die For collection, first shown at India Bridal Fashion Week, and it was unarguably the highlight of the evening. The stage was swathed in sumptuous drapes of dupioni silk in shades of gold, brown, taupe and red; rich brocades; delicate French lace; painstaking embroidery; tedious trims and appliqués. It was a mixture of sleek contemporary silhouettes and ball gowns with saree-style draping and lengha details, and if it wasn’t actually inspired by Versailles, it’s a collection that’s fit for a king and queen. Taking the stage to accept their ANOKHI Award, the personable brother duo proved that aside from their obvious design and business talents, they don’t take themselves too seriously.

An avid biker and golfer, Nikhil is the youngest member of the Fashion Design Council of India. He began his career in Los Angeles, California, studying at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising and working at fashion houses like St. John Knits and Richard Tyler. Shantanu — a tennis enthusiast who can often be found playing a round with his sons at their sports club — earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Delhi University and followed that up with a masters degree in finance from the University of Toledo in Ohio, eventually working in corporate finance for General Motors. In 2000, however, the two brothers returned to India to launch their namesake brand with Nikhil at the heart of the line’s designs and Shantanu heading up the business side. “We both are two sides of the same coin,” Shantanu says. “Our unique combination of art and commerce is what triggered this association. Art in India was never taken seriously back then and we felt that a dose of professionalism could set the ball rolling to make our form of art commercially more viable and marketable.”

The multiple labels under the Shantanu & Nikhil brand along with an unprecedented collaboration with sportswear company Adidas and a client list that includes Amitabh Bachchan, Bipasha Basu and Kareena Kapoor is a testament to their marketability and design. They were the first Indian designers to have professional tennis and cricket players like Serena Williams and Zaheer Khan walk their runway. That, combined with their brand’s “subtle sportswear nuances in the form of architectural lines and geometric textures,” are what Shantanu believes gave their Adidas association more muscle in terms of marketability and accessibility. And unlike typical Indian designers that tend to showcase typical Indian clothing, Shantanu & Nikhil’s collections are globally sophisticated and mainstream, yet still manage to carry a touch of discernable South Asian flare. “The brand intent is to contemporize vintage India on a canvas of sharp silhouettes,” Shantanu says. “Only India, as a country, can give you this whole exotic feel of marrying the West with the East. This underlying current of modern India is what set this love for silhouettes, shapes and drapes for [us].”

It can be difficult doing business with family but the brothers seem to have it figured out, giving credit to the westernized way that they were raised. “Our parents have brought us up more like friends than trying to get into the regular family tree hierarchy syndrome that one follows so frequently in a country like India,” Shantanu says. “[It] not only imbibed the right values in us but also gave us the freedom to express ourselves quite early on in our childhood days. Today, we are still best friends but with the driving passion to make the brand only more valuable and desirable.” And the twosome tend not to worry about following trends and adhering to outside influences; indeed after 14 years in the business the duo claims to not have any friends in the industry, worrying more about their art form of contemporizing vintage India. “We still continue to be socially relevant to our market purely as artists,” Shantanu says. “[We don’t] worry about the external environment. That’s never going to be in our control.”

One thing the duo does have control of is their future, with goals that are aimed at morphing their label into a holistic luxury lifestyle brand within the next five years. “The endeavour is to get into the home space and interiors, restaurants, accessories for both men and women, and design consultancy,” Shantanu says. Although, Shantanu hints, some of the above may already be in the works.

_{BY JACQUELINE PARRISH

PUBLISHED IN THE BEAUTY ISSUE, SPRING/APRIL 2014

PHOTGRAPHY COURTESY OF SHANTANU AND NIKHIL}