Wearable Art
Kiran Uttam Ghosh’s signature works have scorched the runways. Whether a kimono or a lungi or a sari, the distinctive KUG edginess is what we understand as wearable art. Her occasion wear dresses are a contemporary twist to traditional handcraft techniques—an unmistakable harmony between the old and the new. A tete-a-tete with the designer and her own thoughts.
“Often making a kurta into a dress or into a wrap, over a swimming costume, or wearing it with a sari…the important thing is to keep the clothes looking good, having fun with fashion, and to do justice to good design.”
“It’s criminal to wear a beautiful design once and then never wear it again. Even though it’s brilliant for my business, I’m unable to bring myself to support the use and chuck ideology!”
With Covid-19, the world is relooking at everything. What holds value for you in terms of fashion?
I hope once the Covid-19 phase is a distant memory, our fashion world still continues to value the quiet beauty of slow fashion and delights in ageless style. For me, it’s always been the simplicity of timeless design and I see my clients appreciating it more so now.
Creating wearable pieces of art, that will live in your closet forever. I want my client to wear her KUG pieces even two-three decades later as so many of them do so now too.
Celebrating the imperfections of the human hand, we thereby salute the handcraft that’s Made in India, while appreciating that melding of it with cutting-technology—to keep it relevant to the evolving world. Carrying the two worlds together is the strength of my design label.
What have been your most absorbing trend(s)/styles?
I don’t follow trends. I follow my gut instinct on what I am excited to wear and that’s what I put out on my racks and it’s worked for over two decades. When I don’t want to wear something in our range, that’s when I know something is wrong and it’s my compass to get back on the right path always.
My best styles have been versatile clothes, that I often repeat, clothes that we guide clients to wear with different trousers or underlayers or to add a drape. Often making a kurta into a dress or into a wrap over a swimming costume or wearing it with a sari…the important thing is to keep the clothes looking good, having fun with fashion, and to do justice to good design. I feel it’s criminal to wear a beautiful design once and then never wear it again. Even though it’s brilliant for my business, I’m unable to bring myself to support the use and chuck ideology!
Upcycling has been part of our trousseau since inception. It evolved into patchwork embroideries and old upholstery embroidered collections that were inspired sometimes by my grandmas’ torn ghaghra, and once an old beautiful destroyed brocade chair that led to a very successful, old torn layered upholstery look.
What have been your design inspirations?
Fashion to me is not about making beautiful people look good, it’s about making the ordinary extraordinary. To me fashion is what adorns the individual, yet let’s her be who she is. Fashion helps her belong, yet stand out.
In the current scenario, how will you be reaching out to your clientele?
We’re blessed to be a part of a wonderful set of stores with their amazing teams, and we have considerate clients and a super enthusiastic inhouse team. They have been reaching for us and also getting back to us to purchase and we to them. God bless us all. Although sales have been a very small fraction of what they would be in normal times…that’s to be expected. The important thing is to get our designs out there and to keep moving ahead.
How has the couture market changed over the years?
Have you ever been to a wedding and felt “OMG isn't every one looking like everyone else?” I often have. To me a short while ago, it felt like a sea of over-embellished gota, sequin and more gota. Call me old-fashioned or bored. I feel the couture buyer missed the freshness and high drama of “simplicity”.
As a designer, it’s my job to simplify design. When I am creating fine clothes for trousseaus, I noticed the ensembles that flew off the racks were the dramatic, beautifully embellished but not over-embellished ones, glamorous strong clothes for trousseaus without losing their poetry, clothes that make you look effortlessly drop-dead gorgeous were the kind that sold.
So, the market is evolving on its own.
Designer’s Musings
“When I'm asked to describe why I don't suffer from Monday morning blues, even after so many years in this crazy fashion business, I quote Robert Louis Stevenson who once said: ‘It’s all about play but with the seriousness of playing children’. I like to think when I am creating at work that I’m childlike not childish, the difference is enormous—the feeling that I’m at play is wonderful. You get a fresh approach to everything and every challenge is fun.
In the creative industry, we have to keep innovating. Which is fun when you think of it as play. Twenty years ago, good design wasn’t easily accessible. Today everything is ‘good’. The challenge is to do better than that, more interesting than just ‘good’. Some designers set out simply to shock, but at KUG, our ultimate purpose is to make clothes elevate the woman within, adding not just glamour, but a look, a twist that creates something special and ultimately fabulous.”