“You won’t catch me sporting labels and high-end brands all the time. I am into high-street wear too,” says Payal Sen, director of Rosebys Design Studio and of the brand’s interior magazine Enhance. “Similarly, I have a collection of art by not just well-known artists but also upcoming ones,” she adds. But are there things that she simply can’t live without?
“Art,” she replies instantly. Her home, in a swish locality of New Delhi, is where works by “masters like Paresh Maity, Jatin Das and M F Husain just fit in comfortably”. She finds it completely reassuring to wake up every morning and look around to find herself surrounded by art, she says. “I’m the sort of person who lives with art,” adds Sen.
She’s reluctant to give away the prices of her precious artworks — but considering the fact that Indian art, both contemporary and modern, is in great demand today, we can only guess these. At a recent auction, for instance, works by V S Gaitonde, estimated at Rs 2.4-3 crore, went under the hammer for Rs 3.12 crore. Works by Husain, Maity and Das too will will continue to escalate and Sen acknowledges that these make for great investments.
Apart from being house-proud — she loves silver artifacts — Sen also loves shoes. “Every girl likes to have a collection of shoes, and I’m not different.” So which brands does justice to footwear, according to her? Jimmy Choo is one of Sen’s favourite brands. And she excitedly tells us that Choo and renowned fashion store H&M have recently tied up to bring out an affordable collection of shoes, which will include leather accessories, boots and the Jimmy Choo signature heels, starting at Rs 14,320 for the boots.
While Sen steps out in her Jimmy Choos, she says that her closet at home consists of not just international brands like Dolce & Gabbana and Roberto Cavalli but also accessories and outfits by Indian designers like Rohit Bal and Shane & Falguni Peacock. However, Sen reiterates, she has a lot of clothes that don’t come with any tags attached. “I am very comfortable with my style, so a little black dress doesn’t necessarily have to be from any specific brand,” she says. For the record, a spaghetti-strap black dress by D&G costs Rs 53,000, while a black, sleeveless number with “tone on tone” stitching by Roberto Cavalli will cost around Rs 40,000. “I love perfumes,” says Sen when I ask her for other favourites from her closet. Here, too, her favourite brands are D&G and YSL. YSL’s 50 ml Elle costs Rs 1,500.
What she can’t do without (“purely for issues of practicality”) are her Cartier and Chopard watches. Our pick: Cartier’s white gold ladies watch set in round-cut diamonds. Its price: Rs 11.65 lakh. Sen’s pick in sunglasses is Bvlgari, a brand which she believes has an excellent and classy collection of eyewear (Rs 16,000 and up).