The most useful person was Amitabh – he didn’t need a ladder to put up the ensembles!

“The ’60s were uninhibited times for all of us,” remembers designer, Ritu Kumar

I got married in my early ’20s, and moved to Kolkata from Delhi. Kolkata was then a great place to be in, particularly for young people who were trying to make a career and begin life in an urban atmosphere. At that time, we made some of our closest friends, most of whom were involved in theatre, films and the arts. We belonged to the amateur theatre group where a number of people who started their careers in films, hung around. Among them were Amitabh Bachchan, Victor Bannerjee, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Raakhee Gulzar. Amitabh was a close friend of ours. I shared my interest in textiles with him and we often had long conversations on life.

I was 25 and had completed a course in museology, but along with this serious interest in the arts, there was a part of me that was very interested in fashion. I had already opened the first boutique in India and New Delhi, which was followed by a second tiny shop in Kolkata on what was called Wellesley Street. It had a small mezzanine where I set up a small workshop consisting of two machines and a cutting table.

I recall working on an exhibition of clothes at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata. I am still unsure of why and how I was allowed into an art gallery for what was a fashion installation, the first of its kind. I was very nervous but all the members of our amateur group pitched in. The most useful person was Amitabh – he didn’t need a ladder to put up the ensembles! Now, I wonder how any of us could have taken the collection seriously. Most of the fabric came from a luggage manufacturer, the kurtas were ’A’ line and embellished with zips, leather arrows and an enormous amount of hardware, sourced from the neighbouring bagri market! In the ’60s, the individual events did not seem too dramatic but it was then that our paths took different directions. Some of our friends went into films, others moved into less hectic careers. I was to become first a textile and then later a fashion designer.

My second exhibition in the early ’70s, was also in Kolkata, when floral chiffons were ruling the roost. The fabrics came from Paris and England and I wondered about India’s legendary wealth in textiles. My interest in the crafts and textile heritage of India had begun shaping my career. After a few years of tedious research I managed to put up an exhibition of 32 saris. Designs were dug out of forgotten trunks in block-printing areas like Jaipur, Machlipatnam and Farukhabad. Unfortunately, the response to the exhibition was disappointing. People had been divorced from the buti, ambi and geometric motifs of India, and the designs seemed old and unappealing to them. Initially, the revival attempt did not create a ripple, but slowly by the time I was 27, my designs were being replicated by mills and printing units across the country and, thus, began the journey towards revival.

Both exhibitions were memorable for entirely different reasons. The first one was avant-garde to say the least for its time, the other shaped my career into what it is today.’