The Rohit Bal story, 25 years on
It wasn’t easy getting hold of Rohit Bal to sit down and chat with me. I chased him for more than three months and then finally with a bit of proverbial arm-twisting, I got him for an hour to sit in one of his ateliers and answer some of the questions I have always wanted to ask him.
Rohit or "Gudda" as he is popularly known, is a busy man; the wheels on his feet barely ever give him any rest.
If it isn’t designing his next collection or selecting music for his next show or choosing the models or dressing up virtually the who’s who of the country; he is busy collaborating with the likes of Swarovski, Good Earth, Zippo, Titan, Lancôme or endorsing fabrics for Reid And Taylor or Linen Club.
His first question to me as we sat down to for this private tête-à-tête was "this is going to be short and sweet right?"
I smiled and told him, it is going to be long and tedious and that I am not letting him out of my sight till he has answered all of my questions. Smiling and with deep breath, Rohit looked at me and asked me to begin.
The reason we were chatting was the occasion of him having completed 25 years in the business of fashion. He corrected me immediately, "It’s almost 28" he said. The label had begun with menswear only, but with womenswear it had been 25 years. I wanted to take him on a little journey, from the very beginning to 2016 – and talk about the world of difference that you see in him as a person and as an artist. In the next one and a half hour conversation, Rohit didn’t disappoint me one bit; didn’t once ask me to stop or said that he wished the interview would get over.
He politely sat across me, indulging me with little bits of anecdotes, stories, his design mantra and the happy zone he is in at the moment. We carried on talking about some of his biggest hits and the lows in life – like the time he was hospitalised and received an endless stream of get well soon notes or the time he almost got the whole fashion fraternity to walk as the showstoppers in his show or his love for the land which gave birth to him – Kashmir.
It’s not every day that one of the biggest names in Indian fashion decides to have a heart to heart conversation and tell you that, he doesn’t care for anything in the world other than his own creative vision or the inherent love he feels for his work. I was glad to have the opportunity and the result is the documentary, which is partly an ode to his genius and partly a master class in what makes Rohit Bal, ROHIT BAL.