Click on the ‘i’ icon in the gallery to see what the designer has to say about some of his memorable collections and the photographs that accompany them.
Sanjay Garg, the designer behind Raw Mango, started 10 years ago in a stall in Dilli Haat, the handloom and handicraft mela . He enters his 11th year in business with his latest collection, Radha, and a newly-opened store in Delhi, his second in the city.
An overhang of shocking pink bougainvillea against a freshly white-washed compound wall welcomes me as I walk into the Lodhi Colony store for my meeting with the designer. Radha, he says, brings the brand full circle in some ways: it revives his first ever design, and takes him back to Vrindavan, the location of his first photo shoot.
The designer reveals that the brand, known for its carefully-crafted visual campaigns, has always been particular about its aesthetic. Here, he walks us through that process.
Tomorrow marks the launch of the designer’s second store in New Delhi. What makes his aesthetic so unique?
2009/2010: “This is my sister’s photo,” Garg says about this unnamed collection. He had no budget, no photographer, but, inspired by the work of Steve McCurry, he wanted to show that “colour isn’t just for wearing, it is for the soul”. Holi is a ready inspiration, but so was the idea to connote the colours of India.
2010/2011 | Rang: Garg still had no budget, but he did meet French photographer and traveller Zacherie Rabehi. “There was no reference point for a sari shoot except for Raja Ravi Varma paintings, which I couldn’t relate to,” he recalls. With Rabehi, he set about crafting just this. “This was also the first time a sari was made of mashru handwoven mix of silk and cotton). Everyone is doing it now. People ask me to patent it, but I won’t do that. It’s craft.”
2012 | Berang: By this time, Raw Mango had come to be associated with bright colours. This collection, shot in Udaipur, had only deep indigos and charcoal, and launching it made Garg nervous. But he took this perceived colourlessness issue, and turned it on its head. “What I thought was the problem, I made it the collection.” With the range catering to a usual day-in-the-life-of, he decided to use no make-up on the people in the photos.
2013 | Gayatri Devi: “This collection is one of my favourites,” Garg says. He never liked chiffon much, but Maharani Gayatri Devi, known for her chiffon sari style, is the collection’s inspiration. By recreating the famous TIME magazine shoot that chronicled her life in the 60s, Garg’s aim was to give handloom the kind of aesthetic that is typically associated with machine-made fabric. Make-up was used for the first time in this campaign that was shot at the Pataudi Palace with some budget.
2016 | Sanjay Garg Festive: This is the first campaign where the models wear jewellery. “The make-up [in the collection] is inspired from the ritual we do in our weddings in Rajasthan. My brother did it, my father did it,” Garg says. Shot in a remote region of Pali, the bare browns and pale blues of the water body and vast skies serve as a canvas to highlight the simple creams and yellows of the collection.
2017 | Cloud People: Handwoven Bengal mul, brocade and zardosi came together for this collection, which was shot in Meghalaya, “the land of clouds”. The designer added white powder on the top half of the women’s faces to heighten the smoky feeling. “I wanted to shoot against the clouds, wanted them to be like messengers of the gods.”
2019 | Radha: “Radha is about a surrender to the lord in love, with no expectations. And Holi — there are so many versions of it — is so much about play and colour,” Garg says, of his latest. The spring saris are a host of chanderis in orange, pink, green and lime. Holi is brought aive with colour-powder thrown over faces, or yellow marigold petals being strewn about. Some models wear distinct naamam, make-up reminiscent of raas leela, and tulsi necklaces. If the posters in Heer, his previous collection subtly commented on langauge politics, with their choice of Urdu, English, and Punjabi only, Radha isn’t averse to including religious symbolism in its visual narratives. “What’s wrong in that, it’s all a part of our social fabric. Being liberal isn’t very liberal if you’re not open to these visuals,” he says.