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<h1 class="left">Mickey: When were you first interested in fashion?</h1>

<h1 class="left">Anita: When I was fifteen. I was very lucky that I knew at fifteen. I was in school, and that’s when I decided that I want to become a designer. I went looking for a design college and there were only two in Bombay at that time. I had to pick the one which was closest to my house, which was an all girls college, and that’s where I studied.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Mickey: When you were fifteen, was there something that happened that got you interested in fashion? Did you have a role model or an inspiration?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Anita: I don’t remember having a role model or an inspiration. I just remember being very interested in fashion. My mum made my clothes till I was about ten or twelve years old. But when I was about thirteen, we used to have a tailor who used to come home. I used to take clippings from magazines and take my mother to the fabric market, buy the fabric and then sit with the tailor and tell him this is how I want it done. Even when I was young, I remember being so finicky about what I wore. There was this ruffled dress that I had got made by the tailor. He had cut the ruffles too big and I remember making him reopen it and redo it, because I wanted the ruffles to be in a particular way.</h1>

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<h1 class="left"> Mickey: You’ve mentioned that your mother made your clothes when you were a child. What was that like?</h1> <h1 class="left">Anita: Yes, she did. We were three girls and three boys. I don’t know how she got the time, but she made frocks for us, the three girls. She’d buy the same fabric and convert them into clothes. She was very creative, and very talented. I think she would’ve been a great designer herself if she didn’t have a home to look after, with six kids.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Mickey: When you were young, you thought about wanting to be a designer. Is what you imagined about being a designer back then the same as what it turned out to be? Did you have an idea of what it meant to be a good designer?</h1> <h1 class="centre">Anita: When I studied design, I remember doing a thesis in my first year on Giorgio Armani. In the second year, I did a thesis on Calvin Klein. But I remember Giorgio Armani was my role model, in terms of the size of business and what he did. Till today, I admire the man. He’s now in his 80s. I saw a recent picture of him when he did a show in Dubai last year. He looks incredible and still works, and I believe he’s in the studio every day. He was my role model forty years ago. Then there was a whole phase of my life where I was very inspired by Donna Karan, because she was the first woman designer, I think, in the United States. My thesis in college was Armani, and I thought “this is amazing”. I always imagined, even when I graduated from college, that I never wanted to be one of those designers who had maybe one boutique or her own label. I always thought scale even then. Even when I got out of college I used to think about scale. In fact my college friends, to this day, remember that. They say you used to talk big even then and we never really realised you were so serious about what you were envisioning. I had a vision way back.</h1>

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<h1 class="right">Mickey:  Was it a business-related vision or was it purely based on the clothes? It sounds like you were a mogul even then as opposed to someone who was interested in just the actual clothing.</h1> <h1 class="right">Anita: I was inspired by an Armani who had clothing at very different levels. He had a couture line and a ready-to-wear line and all these labels, and I was deeply inspired by that. Even then, I was fascinated by clothing that was affordable, everyone wearing you. I was always interested in ready-to-wear. I was fascinated by the fact that you could have stores all over the world and people could come in and buy your designs off-the-rack. </h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Mickey:  Has your vision been the same since when you were in school, till today? Or has it changed over the years.</h1> <h1 class="centre">Anita: Broadly, it’s been the same. But it keeps changing over the years. I’ve begun to realise today, and more so during COVID, that fashion for me today is a tool for empowerment. And now I realise that this vision can help so many people. When the business grew, I took so many people along with me. We employed two and a half thousand people directly, we employed thousands of people indirectly. I didn’t realise the impact of what I had done until COVID hit. Today, for me, it’s a vision of taking people along and using fashion to empower others. I think that excites me. And of course, design still inspires me. Those days I used to always say that when I’m sixty I’ll retire and do what was very cool in those days - social work. I’ll work and do social good. I realised a couple years ago that I can still turn sixty and still keep designing, and still do social good. Combine the two. I really now want to take the business to a different perspective.</h1>

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<h1 class="right">Mickey: Can you talk about your earliest collections?</h1>

<h1 class="right">Anita: My first collections in college were Rajasthan-inspired. I used to go to Jaipur to shop for textiles, create my tie-dye, and then come back here. This was in 1988. Couple of my designs back then were hand painted, I still do hand painting now. We did a blue pottery collection then, you can do a blue pottery collection today. Fashion just goes round and round. I used to love doing ready-to-wear even then, I did t-shirts in ‘88 which are similar to the Kaleidoscope collection we launched recently. I was also an entrepreneur in college, four of us college friends got together and did an exhibition. We stayed in a bungalow in Juhu for a month, hand-painted clothes until 2am and sold them. When you’re young, you have the fire in you.</h1>

<h1 class="right">Another claim to fame I had then, thirty five years ago, was that I exclusively designed the clothes for the four women for this iconic show called Tara. Like you have Sex and the City, there was an equivalent show on Indian television that shocked the nation. And I did the clothes for all the four characters. People used to go crazy knowing I did that.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Mickey: What has been the biggest challenge about starting your own business? Did you start your business after graduating, or did you work for other designers?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Anita: After I graduated, I got a job offer from the company I did my internship with. A very small company that was run out of  home. It was called ‘Royal Family of Jangatran’, they’re a princely family from Gujarat. I worked for the Maharaja of Jangatran. He had a very small export house, exporting high fashion garments to a small boutique in Washington called Anna Weatherly, way back. I did a six month internship with him and he was very pleased and he asked me to stay on. And then I worked with another export house for a year, which again exported bulk ready-to-wear to the USA. Both my internships were exporters to the United States, but it’s very interesting because both were what I do in my business today, one is a ready-to-wear business and one was a very, couture, one-of-a-kind, handmade clothing in one boutique. We used to make fifty dresses in two months, the kind of work we did was so exquisite. I think in both those internships, I got amazing experience about how large fashion works, and how couture works. And then I started on my own, from my bedroom balcony. The hardest part about starting my own business was never being taken seriously by anyone. Till today. I suffer from the same problem.</h1>

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<h1 class="left">Mickey: Do you think the challenge stemmed from the fact that you’re a woman?</h1>

<h1 class="left">Anita: I think it is because I am a woman, yes. Way back then, women never worked. I was the first woman in my family to even take up a job. When the internship converted to a job, my father threw a fit. He said girls in our family don’t work. My mom had to lie to him in the first six months of the job, saying she’s still doing her internship. I had to lie at home when I was working, it was that traditional, the family that I came from. Patriarchal, where women did not work. I was always fighting the whole system. I was very headstrong, there was no way I was going to listen to them.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Mickey: Do you think that it’s gotten much better for women now?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Anita: It’s getting much better now. Much, much better. In the cities, it has changed. Most families have accepted that women have careers. I think it’s pretty much changed across the whole country now. I don't think there is any region in the country today where a woman would be stopped from working. In some traditional parts, but very few. This was forty years ago. Now, every girl has a career. Now is the golden era for women, with there being so many opportunities. But now, it’s soft sexism that is prevalent in the world.</h1>

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<h1 class="right">Mickey:  If you could go back in time and give your younger self starting out some advice, what would it be? Or would you not change anything.</h1> <h1 class="right">Anita: That’s such a tough one. I have made a lot of mistakes, honestly. A lot of mistakes. My past is just a blur now, I don’t think so much about it. I just focus on today, and tomorrow.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Mickey: If someone was graduating now from school, and starting their own business, what would your advice be to them?</h1> <h1 class="centre">Anita: What I would say to them is to be patient. I meet a lot of young graduates who want to start their own label, but I think putting in a few years of experience is great. I would ask them to be patient, because learning never stops. I’m learning even today! The young today, I sometimes find them very impatient.</h1>

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<h1 class="right">Mickey: Something I find interesting is, in designing for India or designing for the world – do you think your Indian customer and your international customers are the same?</h1>

<h1 class="right">Anita: They are different. Our cultures are different. The Indian customer today is buying global clothes also, by global designers. The international customer is going to buy Indian clothes only if she's attending an Indian wedding. At other times, when her sense of style is different. It's important to understand your customer wherever you go, and design keeping your customer in mind. You have to change your collections as per the city you're going to. For instance, we’re going to Dubai, so we’ve done a special line for Ramadan because we’re opening at the time of Eid and Ramadan. When you go to different cities, women want different things. Your design really stays the same, your language is the same, but how you interpret it is slightly different. I find that interesting.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Mickey: You talked about wanting to empower women, or uplift people. What are some ways you’ve been able to do that?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Anita: We work with some village units in Maharashtra, four hours from here. We run centres there, and provide them with work. We provide work to women artisans in Gujarat with SEVA. We’ve worked with weavers in the North East, last year. Every time we get approached by a women’s cluster, whether they weave, stitch or do embroidery, we try our best to work with them. That’s all we can do, provide them work.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Mickey: You have a new line of vegan accessories. Tell me how the veganism, cruelty-free journey started for you. Where does it fit in with your brand?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Anita: I’ve been vegetarian since I was thirteen. I’ve never had a line of bags because leather was the only material you could do a bag in. When I wanted to do the luxury line, I wanted to wait till we came up with a very beautiful material. Now, there are a lot of companies giving us options that look as good as leather but are biodegradable and plant-based. I think now is the right time for us. We’re partnering with a couple of other companies to develop the right raw materials for us. We launched the first collection with Mirum, but the next two collections that you see will be launched with different partners. The whole idea is to create a luxury bag that has the same malleability and look and feel of leather, but is not leather. It’s not PU, PVC, it’s plant based.</h1>

<h1 class="centre">We’re also doing a lot of craft based bags. We’re launching a line of hand-painted bags, by artisans in Rajasthan. They’ve done the panels in my store, they do for all my stores. I discovered them by chance when I was on a shoot in Jaipur.</h1>

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<h1 class="left">Mickey: You’ve been in business for many, many years. Are there goals you’re still working towards or is it the original Armani-style vision? You seem to have achieved it, so what’s the next step?</h1>

<h1 class="left">Anita: I want to get into home decor by next year. Rest of it, I want to continue with what I do. There's a lot on my plate already.</h1>

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<h1 class="left">Mickey: Do you think you’ll ever retire?</h1> <h1 class="left">Anita: Never (laughs).</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Mickey: You have a new store in Kala Ghoda, and in Dubai. Are there places in the world where you don’t have stores, and would love to have stores?</h1> <h1 class="centre">Anita: Yeah, we’re looking at Canada. We’re looking at LA. I’ve told that to Yash (Anita’s son) now. He has to look after the store expansion. I just want to come into the office every day and create. That’s all I want to do. I don’t want to travel anymore. Except for Jaipur and Bombay.</h1> <h1 class="centre">I feel like I’ve become conscious of time, there’s such less time for me. I just want to spend all my time doing what I really, really love. Spend my weekend with animals, and week with work.</h1>

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