Awkwardly located between a dilapidated chemist store and an eatery in Delhi’s Meher Chand market, Masaba store is hard to miss. Inaugurated by the owner’s childhood friend and actor Sonam Kapoor last year, the store is akin to a colourful walk-in closet. Twenty minutes late, designer Masaba Gupta saunters in on four-inch tan heels with her mother, National Award-winning actor Neena Gupta, in tow.
The women, who bear a striking resemblance to each other (but for Masaba’s curly hair), have chosen to wear white. At 53, elegant in casual white shirt and form-fitting shorts, Gupta looks very different from her last notable screen persona as the rude, unforgiving host of Kamzor Kadii Kaun (2002).
Masaba, in a chikan kurti matched with loose white cotton pants, strikes a contrast against the backdrop of her colourful range of silk and ikkat saris in canary yellow, aubergine, paprika red, bottle green, deep aqua and a few bold blacks and whites. Her mother’s influence is evident: she reviews Masaba’s designs with a stern eye, makes suggestions about “what works in Mumbai, what works in Delhi”, helps Business Standard rummage through her daughter’s saris for the photoshoot, and rushes out.
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At 23, Masaba is on her way to build an empire. And, she is unabashed about her ambition. She launched her eponymous label MASABA in 2009, showcasing a diffusion line for women between 25 and 50 years with dhotis, angarakhas, jumpsuits, ikkat and silk saris, and shift dresses. Yesterday at the India Today Mind Rocks Youth Summit in Delhi, Masaba was one of the youngest speakers, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kapil Dev, Ajay Devgn, Arvind Kejriwal, and Ekta Kapoor. “I am so stressed,” she had said a few days before the summit.
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‘Masaba’, an African term for wild flower, is apt for the impetuous woman seated before me, speaking of her success and her favourite restaurants with the same nonchalance. Evidently, Masaba’s inspiration has been an eclectic mix of her roots. “My biological father,” says the daughter of former West Indian cricketer Vivian Richards, “has seen a few of my designs and likes them”. Richards and Gupta separated after a brief relationship in the 1980s; Masaba has kept her mother’s maiden name. While Gupta married Vivek Mehra, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, in 2008 and moved to Delhi, Masaba stays in Mumbai.
Richards attended her show ‘Straight from the soil’ (2011) which carried an imprint of her heritage: the foot impression in her garments was inspired by the Masai tribes of Tanzania, known to be skilled dancers. Though she isn’t very chatty about her relationship with Richards, she reveals that it was her mother’s elegant saris and her stepfather’s financial grooming which helped her create her brand from scratch.
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Fashion, she says, found her by accident at the unassuming age of 19. After dropping out of a course in music in London (“I was homesick and lonely” she says), she studied apparel manufacture and design at SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai on a whim. It was during her graduation show that she met designer Wendell Rodricks. There was no looking back.
Rodricks, who recalls a young Masaba visiting his store with her mother, spotted her keen eye for fashion while choreographing SNDT’s graduation show. “As soon as I saw her sketches, I realised we had a talent on hand. [Her vision] was crystal clear in her head,” he says. While many SNDT faculty weren’t too keen on her edgy, bold and fuss-free style, Rodricks loved it. “It is a fearless style for modern India,” he feels.
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“The sari has always been seen as traditional and at times inaccessible by young girls,” Masaba explains. “I want to give it an edgy make-over.” She gestures to two hot-selling saris — one with quirky cow prints and the other with old-world cameras. “These are a rage on Pernia’s Pop-Up.” Pernia’s Pop-up Shop, an online fashion portal, sells Masaba’s pink and green muslin camera-print sari for Rs 15,500.
Another popular garment, the black and white silk jacket embossed with hand prints with a purple lining (Rs 8,000), has been spotted on Sonam Kapoor and Neha Dhupia, prompting fashion bloggers to ask the impertinent question: who wore it better? Kapoor also wore a black and white Masaba sari at the Cannes festival last year. Masaba’s bovine prints have been adorned by her mother and Mandira Bedi on television frequently; actors Prateik Babbar and stylist Aki Narula have flaunted her camera-printed dhoti pants on and off the ramp respectively.
Masaba isn’t too comfortable talking figures and doesn’t say much about the size of her business. It was in 2010 that she broke even, she says. The same year, she became the youngest designer to showcase at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week. “Her mother’s impeccable taste in fashion has rubbed off on Masaba,” says Fashion and Design Council of India President Sunil Sethi. “Her outfits make a unique statement,” he adds recalling a recent Indian Idol episode where he spotted host Mini Mathur in one of Masaba’s trademark saris. “My daughter wore a Masaba sari at her school farewell... Masaba has lent a contemporary touch to Indian textiles. You just have to look at the outfit once to recognise her imprint.” Hailing her decision to open a store in Meher Chand market — an upcoming hotspot for hip eateries and shops — as “clever”, Sethi says, “She knows that’s where her target consumer will be stopping by!”
Masaba’s clothes are cleverly priced between Rs 2,500 and Rs 50,000. “Anyone can buy my stuff,” she beams. She has a factory in Meerut where she employs 50 karigars; the sampling is done in her Mumbai workshop. Her designs — palazzo saris, Patiala salwars, cropped tops, tunics, waist coats, blouses and jackets — might pit her against Kolkata-based Kallol Datta(28), who recently made headlines at the Lakmé Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2012 for his monochrome sari with the motif of mating snails. But she isn’t the least bit perturbed. “There’s enough space in the market for everyone,” she firmly believes.
She laughs off a recent post on a social networking site that created media frenzy. “A customer had damaged one my outfits and expected us to fix it or else “she would buy out the store!” Infuriated, Masaba posted: “It’s sad that some of the biggest buyers don’t have any respect for staff and assistants. Having money to buy clothes does NOT give you a license to scream at others & if you don’t respect ppl (sic.) who work for me.”
While she has a burgeoning market in the west Asia, Masaba isn’t too keen on exploring the international market much for now. “I’m only 23 and already being watched like a hawk!” So who’s her competition? “Well, no one I can think of,” she says with a mischievous glint in her eyes.