Ace Fashion Designer, Anita Dongre recently sat down with NewsX for an exclusive interview. She known for designing attires for a multitude of personalities, from the duchess of Cambridge, to Bollywood’s elite. “I’m not just in the business of fashion, I’m here to make people happy” she says.
Anita has been in the fashion industry for over 30 years, and she feels she’s been blessed to have ‘fashion as my passion. I’m lucky I have my profession as my passion”. She says that fashion is about emotion. “It’s all about emotion. The correctly designed garment will make you ‘comfortable, happy, and will give you confidence’.
She started her brand, Wedding Wear over 8 years ago, and opened a store in New York City, 3 years ago. Her goal was to take Indian craftsmanship into different parts of her world, and she feels she’s succeeded. “Everyone who comes to the store, they’re just in love with Indian craftsmanship and design. People are stunned when I tell them that certain designs are not printed, and are actually done by hand. We’re very blessed in India to have such a rich history of these things. There’s such a lot of diversity and variety in Indian work, different states have different kinds of designs. As a designer in this country, even one lifetime is not enough.”
On dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, and its impact on her work, Anita say that her team aimed to utilize their time as best they could under the restrictions. “Obviously, the first month was lost to shock at what was happeneing. But after that we slowly got back to work. Me and my team started to work on some concepts for a few hours a day. Slowly, we’re getting there.”
Speaking on the impact of Covid in the wedding sector, a key area for the fashion industry, she says that a return to normalcy is beginning. “Clients are beginning to visit the stores again, and people are planning their weddings for November, December, January. People are obviously being cautious, but people are starting to plan for the future now.”
As far as when a return to complete normalcy may happen, she says she doesn’t know, but she’s hoping for a positive future. ‘I’m not a health professional, so I really can’t talk about by when we things get normal, though traditional Indian weddings may come back. All I can say is I hope and pray that we are able to put this behind us, and we are able to go back to what life used to be, and soon.”
She’s launching a new collection later this year, aimed at capturing the aesthetic that a bride would like to wear for a wedding. Anita is planning to promote this collection through the new digital means that have come up in the last few years. “I like fashion shows, but only 300-400 people can attend the show, but if you do it digitally, then everyone can attend. We’ll be promoting this collection through Instagram, just like some previous ones.
