His world view is like his designs. Unembel–lished. “I wish I had more brains. I would have done something better with my life than fashion. I want to make new things but it shouldn’t be about some retarded frock made for some retarded woman. I can’t associate with that.” Coming from another designer, the words would reek of arrogance. When Rajesh Pratap Singh says them, you just nod.

Untouched by the hype surrounding him, Pratap remains a quintessential outsider in the fashion whirl. A quiet rebel known as much for his economy of expression as his minimalist threads. “I do very basic, wearable clothes. Clean, pure, simple. The emphasis is on how you make it rather than ornamentation. Whatever geometric you work with, form is very important.”

Intricate embroideries and opulent wedding ghagras are not his style. He equates costumes with stagnation. “If you’re just doing costumes you aren’t going anywhere. You can keep doing surface decoration and that’s where you’ll stay.” Structure matters most to the veteran who is famed for his long pin-striped jackets and impeccably finished modern clothes. The woman he designs for is intelligent, well travelled and in tune with his style wavelength. “But we have enough people who come and say, what the hell, where’s the bling?”

Hailed as the master of immaculate fabric construction, Pratap even uses the metaphor of building to describe his design philosophy. “If you make a house, you’ll make your windows and doors. Likewise armholes have to be there in a garment. Fit is very important. Also the kind of volume you want. What’s important is the form. Once the fabric is right, it does the rest of the work. It’s like how cement works for a wall.”

Every first garment of a collection is in white, a fascination Pratap traces to the wonder years spent in Jaipur. “I think my creations are a lot about where I come from. I do a lot of Rajasthani clothes, only I alter them. It’s not about embroideries; it’s about construction; it’s about white. I’m basically a villager from Rajasthan. I guess it’s not so obvious. But I don’t want to be literal. Why should I be? I’m making international clothing.”

The NIFT graduate attributes his design values and discipline to his mentor, business designer David Abraham, with whom he worked in the export garment trade while in school. Though he admires the work of several international designers, it’s never without reference to a specific time and place. “People come and go in waves – like Yves St Laurent, or Cardin in the early 70s. Balanciaga and Charles Ray Eames have also done some great work.” The designer, who started his design business in 1997 with exports, later started selling at select retail outlets in the domestic market. His primary focus continues to be export and he shows both men’s and women’s collections in Paris each year. He targets smaller, interesting and intelligent boutique stores like Neiman Marcus and Lorenzo in the US, Colette in France, The Garden of the Five Senses in Delhi and The Courtyard in Mumbai.

Pratap describes the process of creation as a “24 hour disease” – the direct manifestation of what is going on in his head. Edgy and unconventional, his body of work is marked by quietly intelligent ensembles that always make a statement — the primly sexy pleated schoolgirl look worn with churidars, the quirky sperm motifs in chikan in place of traditional ambi motifs and his muted vision of his native city Jaipur in tye-and-dye with models covered in paper gallows. In 2004 Pratap stunned the world with a winter collection themed on the romance of death. The startlingly original concept was the result of a week the designer spent with tantric Shiva worshippers among the dead in shamshan ghats.

His recent fixation with architecture — clean 60s and 70s architecture, “not these stupid glass buildings everyone is trying to put up” resulted in a cool and elegant spring summer collection for 2008 with a fresh spin on simple summer dresses in white brought alive by a drizzling of bright colours. The collection in linen, lurex and jersey knits stood out with its clever use of graphic elements, geometric floral motifs and subtle shimmering outfits in cool grays and blues. The accent as usual was on the intrinsic beauty of the fabrics, silhouettes and construction.

The designer is excited about doing the costumes for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s opera Padmavati at France’s Theatre du Chatelet, which goes on the floor next March. The story is set in Chittorgarh and the French opera will feature singers from all over the world. “It’s going to be a full-on production. Chatelet is a monster of a stage where you can get elephants, dogs, the works. The scale is huge and it will be quite a challenge.”

Self-effacing to a fault, Pratap refuses to name his celebrity clientele or elaborate on his collections. “I like something things I make on and off. But it’s not really about me. The fabric does it. I have a blank after I finish.” He couldn’t care a damn about his celebrity clientele but admits feeling thrilled when he discovered that his favourite musician, JJ Cale wore his clothes.
Fiercely protective about his privacy, the father of two is assisted in his work by wife Payal, who handles the retail part of his business. Namrita Joshipura and Manish Arora are his closest friends in the fashion community. “We were batchmates in NIFT and literally lived out of each other’s clothes. When all of us are together — my wife, Manish and our other friends from school and college, we are still the same. The life I have with friends is totally different. It’s completely us. Then there is this whole drama of fashion. And I am not part of it.”

The words ‘moron’ and ‘retarded’ feature frequently when he speaks about the fashion fraternity marking his disdain for the dross that surrounds him. “I can’t deal with this whole warped system. Look at the difference between what our designers say and what they actually make.” He hates the petty politics of the glamour world, “all these retarded people with retarded issues are a waste of time and energy.” Politics happens when you’re doing fashion for the wrong reasons, he believes. “It’s all about doing nice new proportions and selling clothes. If you can do it right, that’s it. Just shut up after that.”
Even the ‘recluse’ label conferred on him by the media is a myth, he insists. “I don’t do interviews because there’s nothing to talk about. I understand communication and PR is important, but please make it professional. It shouldn’t be about who knows whom and who sleeps with whom.” He sees the Indian fashion media as nascent and still learning, much like the designers. “I don’t criticise or judge anyone. We are like this because our country is evolving. I think the next generation will have it ready.”

Ambitious expansion plans are on the agenda. Apart from 40 stores in the next three years, he is developing a new line and tying up with a manufacturer. “Life is moving fast, like a train. I have been working alone all these years but now I’m trying to delegate.” Eternally fascinated by the mountains and the desert, the adventure sports lover dreams of getting back to his passion for mountain climbing. “I’d love to stay with some of my college friends who run adventure camps in Kumaon hills and be there all the time. I want to climb, make buildings, travel.”
The idealist longs to move out of fashion and do new interesting projects driven by pure design – his perfect bullet-proof jacket, sleeping bag and tent. “I want to spend more time doing something more real than these stupid frocks.” Even if they are garments, they should be things like fire-proof clothing or active sportswear or high-altitude apparel, he says. “Making clothes should evolve into that. We have this business which will run its normal growth but the pure design stuff will be the new thing.”
Meanwhile, in the lesser world, the stupid frocks continue to regale ramps, elevate wardrobes, shape personalities and make fashion history.