March 16, 2017 Asmita Aggarwal

Insta-Nothing

Like the slow food movement gripping the West, Isha Dhingra is a believer in less consumption, and creating depth with classics in a hyper industry.

By Asmita Aggarwal

The name Aikeyah comes from a Sanskrit work, and translated it means, ‘your own identity’, which seems perfect for designer Isha Dhingra. In 2012, she launched her label and since its inception she has leapfrogged, with the designer taking her collection to Who’s Next?, Paris, this year.

The self-taught designer, who started working when she was in college, at 19 was initiated in the process by her mom, so she is adept at embroideries and her biggest learning came from customer feedback, rather than a regimen-oriented design school. She made a foray on the ramp in 2008 and continued till 2013, till she decided to take a break and re-imagine by connecting the dots, what the market really demands. “I wanted to bridge the gap between Anokhi and FabIndia on one side and Pero on the other, something that is affordable, uses only the finest cotton, is less expensive than Aneeth and more formal than the former. But along with me, my clothes too have evolved, but I have stayed true to my fascination with handspun cotton and handwoven silks,” she adds.

A personal relationship challenge, along with debts in a partnership made Isha grow up pretty fast and take charge and at 32, she confides that she designs for women, who want to be their own person, not like a celeb they see on 70MM or a star on the red carpet. “Maybe a bit like me, who are not trend-addicts. So what I designed five years ago, I can still wear now with aplomb—the idea is to do timeless ensembles,” she confides.

Her AW’17 range has cotton jacquards, as she mixes Western and Eastern silhouettes, so her kurtas/angarakhas can double up as dresses, minus a shalwar. She confesses that the Indian fashion industry has somewhere lost its axis on which it spins due to a huge Western influx and that’s why better stories, more research and a focus on reading rather than social media needs to be stressed on. “We are so consumed by the internet and what’s going on, on instagram that all of us look like clones of each other. I have stopped buying fashion magazines as you only see international designers on covers, it is too superficial. And if it’s not a big label then you have an Indian designer trying to imitate a big brand…it is a defeating process,” she concludes.

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