While the fashion world is hailing ‘greynaissance’, a celebration of women (and men) for their distinctive style, wrinkles, silver hair and full lives, here is someone who can give a master class on the subject. But Isla Van Damme, 73 and ‘Loulou’ to all, is too busy living in the moment. “Loulou is not about being a certain age, she is an institution,” says textile expert Sanjay Garg about the Belgian designer, architect and stylist who lives in a town near Kodaikanal. Meanwhile, Dutch designer Marie-Anne Oudejans, 63, another free-spirited Indophile based in Jaipur, has been hailed for her interiors for luxury stores, her opulent design philosophy in contrast to Loulou’s organic aesthetic. Here’s why they are social influencers of a different kind.
Isla Van Damme
New York Times refers to her as a “graceful, elfin figure in flowing caftans and gypsy skirts, beads and pendants” but everyone who knows Loulou will tell you that her unerring eye for style and originality defines all her business interactions. Remarkably accessible — “I am often roaming, but call me whenever,” she says, while juggling her stunning home in the Palani Hills and projects in Mumbai, Delhi, Goa and Brussels — she has a “personal, subjective view of beauty” and is quick to reject the dictates of fashion. And yet, as stylist for Mumbai’s chic lifestyle boutique, Bungalow 8, and more recently as a model for clothing and home textiles brand, Injiri, Loulou has been quietly influencing our fashion cognoscenti and style bloggers.
- - Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa is a guru for me in all respects.
- - I admire Belgian designer Axel Vervoordt for his simplicity and yet, a sense of opulence.
- - Italian architect Paola Navone for her brilliance in ‘madness’. And for her very personal style.
- - Indian fashion designer Sanjay Garg for being innovative and dreaming in all fields, be it weaving, garments, interiors, food, photography, music and leading a full life of fun as well.
- Favourite craft warriors
- - Swapna Mehta and her unique method of creating jewellery by mixing old gold and silver elements.
- - Shabnam Ramaswamy, whose life is dedicated to street children. Her NGO Street Survivors India (SSI) in Murshidabad empowers thousands of women through kantha embroidery work. A truly strong woman, she overcomes her horrific past with a smile.
- - Neeru Kumar for her brilliant weaves, and Sally Holkar for her dedication to weavers in Maheshwar.
- An experimental cook’s Mumbai food trail
- - Kapil and Reshma Sangh’s Plenty, for simple, light food; Prateek Sandhu’s Masque is fabulous; The Table never disappoints; and don’t miss my friend Kanu Gupta’s Secret Suppers!
Injiri’s recent campaign sees her in Chinar Farooqui’s modern rustic apparel inspired by folk designs and it has had women come up to her in airports to thank her for being inspirational. “At 40 is when women start thinking of age, when the first wrinkle arrives. You have to accept age. I don’t understand the fuss, as long as you stay young in the mind and keep healthy. India has totally accepted me,” says the woman who limits herself to an hour on social media but can easily lose track of time in her garden. Back in Kodai, she has roses from Belgium, organic vegetables from France, lemon trees from Tuscany, a pink pepper tree from Taroudant in Morocco. “I hardly travel without a cutting or seeds,” she says.
Banjara in Belgium
Loulou’s connect with the subcontinent goes deep. Her father held the post of honorary vice consul back in the day. “My parents were old Bombay wallahs , which is how I know many of the old families here,” she explains, adding in jest that she was a “strange, junglee girl who climbed trees’’. Then she was sent to school in Belgium and, just out of convent at 18, she met her husband and decided to set out into the world. At 21, she opened Santosh in Brussels, an address for fashion, jewellery and décor. “I knew nothing about business. Yet Santosh became a very famous store in Belgium, a country that is into very classical fashion, with emphasis on quality. Here I was, selling banjara clothes to them. Perhaps they wanted change and a little bit of fantasy in their lives?” One of her famous anecdotes is about getting the queen of Belgium to wear her Indian dresses! She uses it to this day to prove that anything is possible. “When someone tells you something cannot be done, I say it can,” she says. Friends and business partners, from the individualistic Maithili Ahluwalia of Bungalow 8 to Sanjay Garg, reiterate her positivity and ability to reinvent.
In 1999, she decided to move back to India with her husband, and opened the Olive Ridley restaurant in Goa. That, she says in retrospect, was when she really changed. “I had big personal experiences, and went through divorce after 40 years of marriage. I took up yoga seriously. I now tell people that problems must be taken positively: ask yourself, what does it bring?” She later relocated to a quieter part of Goa and set up Panchavatti (meaning ‘five trees’), a home overlooking the Mapusa river. It became a getaway for artists and eclectic friends. In 2011, she moved to Kodai, her birthplace, and set up a small cottage on 12 acres of land in the Palani Hills. She had come full circle in a way.
An active retirement
Later this year, Loulou will launch a wellness retreat next to this house, and guests will be referred by international yoga teachers. “I don’t like the word spa very much. Guests will be encouraged to do nothing, absolutely nothing. It is an opportunity to learn to be with yourself,” she says. Later, I ask I her if she is ever overwhelmed by solitude in the hills. “Absolutely not! I need these alone moments to recharge my batteries, empty my head, and restart the thinking machine.”
Meanwhile, Loulou has been busy, with Ahluwalia’s expansion plans at Bungalow 8, the interiors at Garg’s Raw Mango boutiques in Delhi and Goa, setting up an organic community with some Goan friends, and also working on a book on recipes with the brand, Conscious Food. “I came to India to retire and it hasn’t worked at all,” she laughs uproariously. “But I go with the flow. I live in the ‘now' with no rushing, dreaming a lot, working on projects but without being paranoid about the shortness of life.”
Marie-Anne Oudejans
Put a fashion designer, with an inherent love of colour and the exotic, in a city filled to the brim with jewellers, stone carvers, master tailors and painters, and you can bet magic will ensue. It’s been five years since Marie-Anne Oudejans designed Bar Palladio, the Italian restaurant at Hotel Narain Niwas Palace, but it still wins her compliments. And not for the delectable menu of handmade fettuccine and fresh Prosciutto Parma. The Dutch designer’s use of colour — every shade of blue, from azure to zaffre — and pattern — Mughal florals to Jaipur block prints — makes her work stand out. A favourite with Instagrammars — the recent Jaipur Literature Festival saw authors and guests posting pictures from the bar — it is a true melting pot of design, where East meets West. It also speaks volumes of the nomadic life she has led.
Netherlands to India
Born in The Hague, Oudejans moved to Paris as a teenager and later made her name as a fashion designer in New York. In the 1990s, she started Tocca, a fashion label known for bringing a new bohemian-chic to America’s fashion capital. She even used sari borders in one of her collections. “I just saw them while I was on Broadway and loved them,” she says. Of course, she could not know it was a sign of what was to come.
When she left Tocca for personal reasons, she says she was not ‘feeling’ fashion any more. Then on a flight from Tokyo to Spain, life changed when someone asked her why she didn’t visit India. The question struck a chord and in a few months she moved to Delhi with her dog. However, she soon discovered the noise of the capital was not for her, and looked to Jaipur instead. Living in a rented one-bedroom flat in the Hotel Narain Niwas Palace — travelling to and from London for work — she says, “For now, this is most definitely home.”
No more pink
Bar Palladio happened when the hotel’s owner, Barbara Miolini, another European settled in Jaipur, approached her to design the concept restaurant and bar. Oudejans decided to make the set of five rooms a voyage of discovery, combining baroque ornamentation and the decadence of the maharajahs. Calling her use of colour spontaneous, she exclaims that everyone asks her about the blue. “I think Jaipur has so much pink, so I wanted to contrast it,” she says. “The City Palace has a blue room, but the funny thing is I saw it only after I made the mood boards for this space.”
Bar Palladio has the eclectic feel of her fashion label. With Venetian-style black-and-white flooring and Louis XV-style furniture, the hip use of space reminds you of New York, yet it is so Indian. One of the most striking rooms is done up in teal, with a fresco-style mural wall of peacocks. The ceilings are another highlight — tented canopies with orange highlights.
Cut, colour and candles
Since then, the 63-year-old has brought her ‘Modern Maharani’ style to multiple projects, including several homes and a collaboration with Ayurveda beauty brand Kama, for the (Cafe Palladio) Fiori d’Arancio candle. “I created the inspiration and packaging, and we both collaborated on the look and smell,” she says. The interiors of the Gem Palace in Mumbai and Jaipur also bear her signature.
Siddharth Kasliwal, creative director and partner of Gem Palace, met her through a common friend and felt her style was the perfect fit for the brand’s heritage. “She was inspired by our gems, and even used my father’s designs as inspiration for her mood boards. Marie-Anne said she’d dreamt of Burmese pink rubies before choosing the colour of the showroom,” says Kasliwal, who has commissioned her to do their Delhi store.
Sujata Assomull is Fashion Editor at Khaleej Times