25 Glorious Years of Tarun Tahiliani

With a queer sense of humor and even more grandiose sense of style and design is Tarun Tahiliani. Hailed as the Karl Lagerfeld of India, Tarun Tahiliani is an artist, 25 years later in the industry, his creative process has never really stopped. When you are an artist, all the things you work with get connected. Gaining inspiration from architecture, thinking of motifs, creating sketches and over-the-top drapes it all comes together to create a synergy. Infusing his brand with modernism and sophistication and yet maintaining the perfect balance with India’s heritage and history, Tarun Tahiliani, the eponymous brand completed 25 years in the industry and he made the celebration extra special with a stroll down the historic Qutub Minar in the moonlight with his models dressed in his couture, a studio visit where he exhibited his years of archives and a celebration at home. His wife, Sailaja 'Sal' Tahiliani had said that his celebration was very much like his routine- A visit to the studio, then the boutique and with a peaceful evening stroll at the Qutub Minar he returns home for dinner with family.

Tarun is known for his larger-than-life personality. But beneath the glamorous lifestyle is a man who looks into the small and finer details of everything. Let’s explore the journey of the man himself.

The Making of Tarun Tahiliani

Tarun as a child used to participate and win every art competition in his schooling days at the Doon School, Delhi. His paintings were always of women, beautifully dressed with intricate accessories. Born in Mumbai, Tarun was the son of Admiral R H Tahiliani. Being in the navy, his family would often be posted to various locations in India. Soon, the family shifted to Delhi, where Tarun completed his schooling and at The Doon School, a boarding school in Dehradun. After that, he joined St. Stephen's College in Delhi as an honours student. But he didn’t find it challenging enough, hence left it within a year. He then went to US, Vassar College, New York for a year and went on to obtain a degree in Business Management from the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania. It was here, where he met his future wife and also the person who acted as a backbone to his retail shops- Sailaja (Sal). They got married in 1980.

Source : vervemagazine.in

Tarun’s fate was sealed to be a fashion designer, he soon realised that there was an extensive scope in India for designer wear. Eventually in 1987, he and Sailaja opened Ensemble, their first baby. It was a multi-designer fashion store based in Mumbai which brought together Rohit Khosla, Abu Jani & Sandeep Khosla, Neil Bieff and Tahiliani’s label, then called Ahilian. This store became an instant hit and soon in 1988, the first fashion show of Ensemble was held at the Taj Mahal Hotel, which soon became a regular annual event- unveiling the glamorous collections of the designers.

Source : gulfnews.com

Soon came the turning point of Tarun’s career when in 1989, YSL had come to India, announcing that they were going to pick one Indian designer as a winner who would come to Europe to work with them. This would be Tarun’s dream come true, but at the end of the competition, they chose none of the designers and went with a second model. This infuriated Tarun as he felt, it was okay that he wasn’t good enough to get selected but was none of them, good enough?

It came like a wake-up call to him. Everything Tarun sketched was perfect in his head, but when he tried giving it to his tailors, they didn’t have the knowledge of pattern-making or how to cut or drape a garment. He realised even he didn’t know that art and he had to train himself for better now. Hence, he went to FIT (Fashion Institute Of Technology, New York). He learnt his technical skills here and worked and worked like a dog until he had his skills polished and perfected.

He came back to India only to shift his base to Delhi and started with his own label, Tarun Tahiliani.

Tarun Tahiliani and Couture

Source :shilpaahuja.com

Being a versatile designer, Tarun Tahiliani produced a number of lines including accessories, diffusion and prêt-a-porter, but he became very famous for his bridal couture. Couture was introduced to Traun by his longtime friend, Minal Modi. She asked him to make the patterns on her body and had asked him to mould the fabric and mark because everyone’s body is different. That’s when Tarun realised that couture was making something that fits your body exactly, like a second skin.

Tarun derived a different kind of happiness in making something that just fit perfectly on the body. While earlier people had more time and splurged in couture, nowadays ready-to-wear is also becoming dressy and preferred by customers. Hence, couture mainly lives among the brides who do not want to get weighed down by their outfits but rather wear such light-weight outfits that they can dance all night in their bridal wear. TT brides then became a thing where the bride should look like herself, be effervescent. Tarun rose to fame when he designed the wedding outfit for British heiress Jemima Khan who was getting married to Imran Khan, the former cricketer and current prime minister of Pakistan in 1955.

Source : pinterest.com

Tarun Tahiliani’s Inspiration

One of the first muse of Tarun Tahiliani has been his sister, Tine Tahiliani. As their mother died when both were just children, Tarun would organise most of her clothes, shop for her, take her to the tailor and tell in detail with the tailor as to how he wanted his sister’s clothes to be like. Later, when he got involved in his career, his all-time muse remained to be the supermodels, Mehr Jesia and Minal Modi. Tarun believes that his muse would not merely be a puppet on whom he would throw his clothes but rather would teach him and challenge him to do more. On the occasion of the 25 years of Tarun Tahiliani celebration, Tahiliani loyalist, Mehr had commented to Vogue, saying,

“When I wear a Tarun Tahiliani creation today, I know I wear it with as much confidence and vitality as I did 25 years ago...That’s my Tarun.”

Source : thepurplewindow.com

Tarun is also inspired greatly by travelling around the different parts of the world. Few years back his team and he had visited Egypt and soon thereafter he came up with a collection called ‘India by the Nile’. Tarun has also been greatly inspired by the Kumbh mela. He went there to see the draping of people visiting the place. He felt a different sense of revelation there, he said “And these are true Indians not touched by anything. It’s primordial. The women in these hairdos with gendas, dancing... it is beautiful! I want to go back for that spirit.”

Following his eternal inspiration, he came up with a collection called ‘Kumbhback’ sporting a blitzkrieg of colours. Bringing together the various colors, texture, patterns and drapes and everything sewn together to create a magical chaos on the runway similarly to the Kumbh Mela. Tones of red, rusty saffrons, the element of rudraksh, it was a real mela.

Tarun Tahiliani and India Modern

We still have a colonized mindset. It is a stupid fallacy that we should design for the West. We are trying too hard to woo the West.

- Tarun Tahiliani

A blog about Tarun Tahiliani will be incomplete without the mention of his concept of ‘India Modern’. Whenever Tarun felt that he lacked the skill he would pack his bags and head to Europe to polish his skills. The more he travelled outside, the more he even came in touch with the roots of India. Famous for its fabrics, Tarun came across the various crafts, the Mughlai work and fabrics, the chikankari work of the Deccan, bandhinis and Abla work of Gujrat. That’s when he started weaving the colorful story of modern India.

Tarun Tahiliani in an interview with Telegraph India said,

“Indian modern is a synthesis, a blend… not being parochial. We are just Indians. We will take the best of everything and embrace and eventually become one thing.”

India Modern went beyond the practice of preserving one’s history. It was about re-thinking the country's history and crafts with a new angle. Tarun doesn’t claim to be the concept of his own and says its okay if the other designers talk about it as long as they get it right!

25 Years of Excellence.

Since Tarun’s first show in 1994 at The Dorchester, London where he had shown his first collections it has been more than 25 years and the walk to excellence hasn’t paused. Thinking about longevity, Tarun says that his pieces are such that can be worn and re-worn and that according to him is sustainability. By managing a balance between the past and the present, Tarun has his gaze towards the future. Over the years, Tarun also helped in finding The Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) in 1998 which acted as a platform that would represent Indian fashion and design. Tarun also became the first designer to showcase his collections at the Milan Fashion Week held at the Palazzo della Permanente in 2002. His collection showcased medieval Mughlai miniatures and toned chikan separates, a few saris and bridal lehengas. It was here the concept of ‘India Modern’ was born. Soon, as a master of drapes and aesthetics, Tarun Tahiliani started with the concept of pre-draped sarees for the woman who wanted to preserve their tradition but yet have an edgy look. This was worn by famous celebrities like Lady Gaga, Aishwarya Rai and even Karlie Kloss. Through 25 years of his label, Tahiliani says, he couldn’t be more happy or excited than now because then, he is moving onwards.

Conclusion

For anyone who’s studying fashion, let Tarun Tahiliani be an inspiration. He has worked effortlessly through years and is yet at young at heart to learn and gets inspired by the wondrous heritage of India. Inspired from the past, his work reflects on what evolving India looks like. Being a visionary his idea is clear, he wants to make wearable luxury that can actually be adorned by the women of today. Tarun would nonchalantly move to the 26th year of his career had it been for his PR but that’s the thing about artists, its movement that keeps them going.

Signing off by a quote on what drives Tarun Tahiliani to get out of the bed and create magic-

In an interview with Vogue, Tarun said,

“I have realized that sticking to who you are and what you do best, is what works both personally and to keep a business going. And this has happened over the last year or two, this realization that I’m raring to go and no one can touch me. So I’m going to keep going and doing it my way.”