While Mumbai blazes on an April afternoon, in the company of creamy cold coffee and air conditioning, 27-year-old Sabbah Sharma sits very chirpily on her side of the table in her loft-showroom in Juhu, Mumbai. From minute one, Sabbah breaks any ice before it can even be made. A student of Instituto Marangoni in Milan, Sabbah like any other passionate designer believes in her work. She designs for the regular girl, because that is exactly who she is: “I am a normal girl, I have a sense of humour, I like reading and travelling. I want to design for people like me, everyday women doing everyday work and enjoying themselves.” While she shies away from the glitz and glamour by saying, “I want to be known for my work and not for my face. I can’t do the air kissing, it’s not me,” Sabbah is anything but your average girl-next-door. “The milestone of my journey will be to be invited to do a high-end fashion show in Milan or something like a Marni maybe.”

She explains to me, “Just because you are special at something, it doesn’t have to define you. You are a culmination of a lot of things. I love to design, but I also like to travel and, as a kid, I wanted to be a painter or an author. All of this makes me who I am.” “So what inspires you?” I ask her looking at the tiny snow globes kept on her table. “It depends on my mood. There are times when nothing at all will inspire me, and days when everything will. I have just returned from my Goa vacation and my new line is inspired by it. Lots of colours and sunshine, perfect for the tropical summer.” This is just a prelude to her tenure in the fashion world, where we only need to sit back and watch the other pretty things she continues to pull out of her hat.

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