“I am 58. I am a Fashion Designer based in Ahmedabad. I did my course in the London School of Fashion. But I belong to Madurai,” the feeble voice on the other end of the phone gets me curious. Fashion designer Rebecca D’Souza is probably the first woman from the temple town – till hitherto undocumented -- to have stepped into the fashion world. In town after three decades to do some ground work for her next collection, she turns up in a printed black top, culottes and a pair of ballerinas.
“I am a down-to-earth designer belonging to the old school of fashion,” she grins sheepishly. “To be a designer, three-decades ago was nothing as fancy as today. Fashion then, was hardly an industry in India.”
Growing up in the Anglo-Indian pocket of Railway Colony in the Madurai of the 60’s, Rebecca D’Souza experienced a major change in her life post marriage when she shifted to Ahmedabad.
“My neighbourhood in Madurai was a laid back and warm environment that nurtured my artistic personality. While every other girl my age wore pattu pavadais, I dressed up in skirts and frocks for balls at the Church and our community hall. I remember my mother and I would shop in the Koil kadais at the Meenakshi temple, picking up fabrics of silks and cotton and stitch them into midis and skirts. My mother was fashionable in her young age and I inherited some of those traits.”
But Rebecca’s engagement with fashion happened much later when she was 30. Her husband encouraged her to take up arts as she was good at painting. “That’s when memories of my frock-days in Madurai came rolling by and I decided to do fashion. My daughter was six years old when I left to pursue a diploma in fashion designing at the London School of Fashion.” Later, Rebecca went on to pursue textile design in NID and now she is also a visiting faculty at NID and NIFT in the apparel department.
“For a girl from Madurai, my days in London opened my eyes to the world of fashion. I was lucky to have worked with bigwigs of the western fashion industry such as Zandra Rhodes and Martin Shoben. That laid the foundation to what I do today,” says Rebecca, who designs both men’s and women’s wear. “I am more of a technical person, design comes later to me. I don’t believe in dramatising and keep things minimal in my garments.”
A nature lover, Rebecca, draws her inspiration from the beaches of Goa and the forests of Kerala. “I also use a lot of natural fibres like jute, Khatia silk and hand-woven fabrics like four-plaid and two-plaid matkas.”
When I started off, I hardly had any clients. My initial years were restricted to designing loud Chaniya-cholis for Navratri. Ahmedabad then was a conservative town and the Gujaratis were hesitant to experiment. I played safe until I visited Goa, where my husband hails from. Goa was a different as the hippies were just then discovering it. The place was starting to boom into a beach tourism spot and I cashed in on the varied clientele, recounts Rebecca. “At one point, I was designing beach and resort wear, party outfits and wedding gowns in Goa and Ghagras in Gujarat.”
Over the years, Rebecca has become an expert in Indo-western fusion wear. “I go with a little market research and come up with prêt lines for my clients. I also do Haute couture for a small private group of people who demand exclusives for specific occasions. I do fashion consultation and get to know their need and personality and accordingly I improvise and bring in more ideas. The process involves specsheet and sampling, sketching, colour combination and variations. I put up my garments in stores like Madam Butterfly and Sozas in Goa and Folio in Bangalore.”
Rebecca concentrates more on the weaves and stitches in a garment. “My speciality is structure. I believe that if a garment doesn’t fit you well, the whole idea is lost. People come to me for the perfect pattern making and garment construction and I am happy to hear them say that the dress fits them like a glove. I think comfort is more important than style,” she says.
“I like to include local arts and crafts in my collections,” says Rebecca, who has designed a beach wear collection made out of Bandhani and an exclusive collection of silk dhotis for the Rajasthan Khadi Board and Village Industries. “I have also used Kanjivaram silk in many of my designs. Now I am working on a collection inspired by Tanjore Paintings. I intend to use the elements of the Tanjore art as surface embellishment in the ensembles.”
“I personally like the Boho, gypsy look and many times I feel what I designed 20 years ago are coming back,” says Rebecca, whose latest collection ‘Animal instincts’ showcased a range of garments with various animal prints. “I want to go more into natural and organic fibres which are the big trend now. When we work right from the warp and the weft, it makes a huge difference.”
