This certainly feels like going down the rabbit hole. Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party organised recently at the Design Hotel has dainty tea pots, faux pink flamingos, bunny ears and life-size playing cards featuring the Queen of Hearts. There are delectable cupcakes, topped with frosty icing and painstakingly balanced miniature fondant tea sets. And then there are hats: fun, frothy, flamboyant hats. All setting the stage for India’s best known, and probably only, milliner: Little Shilpa.
The guests start trickling in, each wearing a floral fascinator designed by Shilpa Chavan. A moment later, the petite designer bounces in. (No wonder she was given the name Little Shilpa while training with designer Hemant Trivedi in 1997.) “I have done up this space for today. I had actually worked on the same theme for London Fashion Week Spring-Summer 16: my models walked around like they were high on tea. I also did a tea party installation for the launch of the 100th Taj property in Gurgaon in 2013. I guess that’s’ how the promoter’s of the mall thought of me,” she says.
Dramatic, avant garde, whimsical, her works are nothing short of art. “I am stuck in between two worlds, that of being an artiste and a designer.
It’s a good creative space to be in.” Her creations use felt, bijoux, plastic and metals, as well as some truly bizarre material such as thong slippers, undergarments and broken bangles.
Little Shilpa’s fascinators and hats have adorned the heads of an impressive list of celebrity A-listers: Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Sonam Kapoor and Kangana Ranaut. She says her favourite creation so far is what she designed for Gaga when the pop star visited India in 2011. Inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s poem The Invitation to the Voyage, it was an elaborate hat made of black lace and stockings, which gave the impression of chopper blades all set to fly.
After studying fashion and graduating from SNDT College, Mumbai, Shilpa worked on apparel for a year. But that didn’t really excite her. She then discovered the joys of designing head gear. “This was much more fun. I launched my brand Little Shilpa in 2009. I have been showcasing at the London and Paris Fashion Weeks since 2014. And I started Milan last year,” she says.
She does, however, continue to designs outfits, all heavily inspired by street style. She also makes accessories such as neckpieces and epaulettes. However, the head pieces are still her favourites. Even for her SNDT graduation line, Shilpa made models sport graphic maang tikas.
Maybe, it all began with her love for her favourite hat as a child, an object she still treasures. “It is blue, white and red. My mother tells me numerous stories about my obsession with this particular hat,” she says and adds, “As a toddler, I was once bawling and refused to stop. My parents were wondering why. Then a paan wallah on the streets told them I had dropped my hat. The moment my mother put it back on my head I instantly stopped crying,” she laughs.
In 2002, she did a summer course at Central Saint Martins in London. Then, in 2006, while holidaying in that fashionable city, she called famous milliner Philip Treacy’s office, asking if they were looking for interns. “Surprisingly, they were. So I asked them if they wanted to see my portfolio. It was a Thursday when I met them, and they asked me to start from Monday,” she says, adding, “Treacy is like God for me. I learnt a lot from him, especially humility. That’s a rare quality you see in people who are at that level. He also taught me how to finish my product inside out.”
While the fashion industry continues to relentlessly churn out new apparel and accessory designers every season, it is still rare to find a designer specialising in millinery. “There are only about five famous milliners around the world. It’s a very old-school form of hand craft. Since most of my pieces are fun and vibrant, people assume it’s easy, but it is not.”
Even though headgear isn’t new to India, given our association with turbans, experimenting with contemporary head gear is yet to pick up. Globally too, the scene isn’t thriving. Shilpa says it is because people tend to be intimidated by head gear. “Some of my clients want fascinators, but don’t want them to be large. They don’t want to attract attention. That’s their biggest worry. But if you wear something on your head and enter a room, people are going to look,” she laughs. However, things are finally changing, she adds. “My clientele now includes not just celebrities but even new-born babies. Older women are experimenting more as well. Recently I had a 65-year-old requesting a head piece to wear at Burning Man!” she chuckles.
Shilpa adds, “The age of statement bags and neckpieces has gone. If you want individuality, a head piece can make you stand out.” She pauses thoughtfully for a minute, then concludes, “The head gear is a place of wonder… it transforms you.”
(Little Shilpa was in the city as part of The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party organised by Phoenix MarketCity and hosted by Sunita Choraria, Tina Malhotra and Farah Danani.)
