His next design stop

Chaitanya Rao, who has been busy working on his own line and styling looks for film stars and fashion shows, talks about his foray into bridal couture

March 22, 2015 03:09 pm | Updated April 11, 2015 03:50 pm IST

Fashion designer Chaitanya Rao with models before the show. Photo: R Ravindran

Fashion designer Chaitanya Rao with models before the show. Photo: R Ravindran

Chaitanya Rao is missing. It’s over an hour past show time and the Chennai-based fashion designer is yet to arrive. The entire place is in a frenzy; the media is abuzz, special invitees of the evening are trickling in and the organisers are taking turns to call him frantically. At the event that marks the launch of Chaitanya Rao’s new bridal couture store, with the unveiling of Toni & Guy’s bridal look book Happily Ever After , the music is thumping and the energy is high. The man of the hour, however, is still draping the models who are to show-off his first bridal collection. 

When he finally waltzes in, it is to the flash of a dozen cameras. He’s dressed comfortably in a white shirt and a black waist coat and laughs, “I can be a stylish diva too sometimes, but today I was busy dressing up everyone else.”

Chaitanya Rao, one of the city’s foremost fashion designers known for his edgy western couture, is treading new ground. Bridal, he says, has a big market, and his store will offer made-to-order bridal couture for men and women. “With my earlier store, I made bad business decisions. I used to keep running off to do film styling, which was very demanding, and I didn’t have good backend support. I couldn’t handle it and the store ran into the ground,” he says candidly and adds that this is why he is excited about his latest collaboration with entrepreneur Sam Paul, the man behind Toni & Guy, to create a one-stop shop for people’s bridal needs — clothes, styling, hair and make-up.

During the fashion show, the models, dressed in Indian bridal wear, showcase classic drapes which are enhanced with western elements. Nudes and golds are in this season, says Chaitanya, who has his models, including his showstopper actor Lekha Washington, sporting dramatic head-gear. He offers muls that are comfortable for summer resort weddings, easy-to-wear drape sarees, bold and trendy jackets that offer an edge to traditional wear, sherwanis with gold embellishments and bespoke suits. “This is more a showcase of what I can do because, in my two-year hiatus since the closure of my store, I’ve fine-tuned my skills and done more research. This is just a teaser; the heavy ghagras are yet to come.”

Chaitanya has always had a creative streak. Inspired by his mother’s artistic work, he was sketching away by the time he was 12 years old. But when he finished school, there was only one college — NIFT Delhi — that offered fashion courses. And anything abroad was just too expensive. So, after a course in tailoring at Thai Designs, Bangalore, he started working for ColorPlus at a time when fashion was just burgeoning in India, while also juggling an evening college degree in Economics at Loyola. “I did Economics thinking I was going to be a business guy, which I definitely wasn’t,” he laughs.

At 18, young and ambitious, he started working as a merchandiser even though, he says, he wasn’t entirely sure what that meant at the time. “The exposure to good trims, washes and fusions was from there,” he says. When ColorPlus began expanding, he travelled to different parts of the country and exposed himself to different aspects of the trade. At the end of three years, after he’d learned all he could, a new avenue caught his fancy — films. He assisted Priya Balasubramaniam of AVM and realised, in the process, that designing clothes for movies was a completely different ball game. “With films, there’s always a time constraint, which taught me to work faster. It’s a lot of high energy and stress,” he says. 

He flits between the Tamil and Telugu film industry (“Depends on who pays,” he says, laughing) and has styled Simran in Kannathil Muthamittal , Asin in Ghajini , Trisha in Ayutha Ezhuthu , Ileana and Mahesh Babu in Pokiri (Telugu) and Nayantara in Raja Rani among others. He’s worked with Ajith, he’s styled Dhanush and he’s been gifted a pager by Surya at a time when that was the easiest way to communicate. Sonam Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor have worn his clothes for Vogue , he’s showcased his lines at Lakme Fashion Week, he’s been styling for television commercials and magazines like Elle , Vogue and Verve . He is a well-known name in the Chennai fashion industry and yet, he says people don’t recognise him on the streets. “I think I need to get more media-friendly,” he chuckles.

Juggling films, his own line and styling for shoots keeps him hopping from one project to another and gives him very little time for much else. But that’s just how he likes it.

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