The twins Vishesh and Viraj, one an artist, and the other born with a business acumen, embarked on a journey to give their mom Anamika Khanna a respite when they started AK-OK, but now it has a legion of followers owing to its unpredictable prints, placements raw embroideries, tattered denims and bustiers worn with her sheer ubiquitous dhotis.
By Asmita Aggarwal
What is it that serenades an audience as much as the magic of monochromes, of course in Anamika Khanna’s case, a bit of distressed denim added to the heady concoction? Maybe it’s timeless appeal, or that you just can never go wrong with this combination!
AK-Ok was started when Anamika was extremely unwell and her twins would often ask her if she was ok, thus the moniker, which grew into an almost pret line, hoping to appeal to GenZ. But this year for LFW X FDCI 2024, it seemed as if Anamika was dressing women like her, confident, who were not interested in impressing anyone, they prioritised comfort and above all wore separates they could wear something already existing in their burgeoning wardrobe.
Her new found love for Kaftans with pockets, oversized pant-suits in white with placement prints and artworks, shirt dresses cinched at the waist with gold chain belts, fabric manipulated to create textures on high waisted skirts as well as extreme tessellation showed us that Anamika is moving to an era where day to night dressing is mandatory.
Candy wrapper gold with shiny coats, her love for tatters and holes, as well as risqué necklines, without being too overt was her way to add a little sexiness to the mundane. You can never have a show without the various avatars of the dhoti, transparent to translucent, draped to pleated, worn with denim busters to long coin embroidery jackets, AK-Ok has various options to choose from. The balloons pants, denim cut up and broken, with embroideries with threads hanging, zari unfinished, the incompleteness kind of completed the look, as if announcing, “in this I find that I can relate to the state of minds of the current generation—a lack of wholeness, a constant searching.”
Shanaya Kapoor the star daughter decided to tell us that in the sweltering summer heat, which can descend on us anytime now, a white shirt is enough to take you through the day, of course with the addition of chunky bangles, an air-conditioned neckline and layered bracelets!