The Hindu Business Line : Bhadralok beckons

Men find her designs irresistible. But she is no temptress who oomphs to conquer. Instead, she weaves her magic on clothes that rule men's hearts. Long before the word "metrosexual" was even coined, Kolkata's Sharbari Datta brought a gust of sartorial freshness into the world of men's fashion. She is a fashion designer who "dared" to drape men in ethnic chic — designer kurtas and colourful dhotis. Today, Kolkata's Sharbari is the toast of Manhattan.

Right from Jagjit Singh, Vijay Mallya and Russi Modi to Leander Paes, Kapil Dev, M.F. Hussain, Baichung Bhutia and Sourav Ganguly, they have all succumbed to her elegantly intricate designs. Sharbari has virtually reinvented Bengali ethnic wear and her exquisite designs lend a contemporary touch to dhotis, kurtas and uttariyans. Recently, the city council of New York felicitated Sharbari for her work. Her fashion show at the Manhattan Centre was lapped up by not only ethnic Asian but also non-Asian audiences. On the second evening, at the Kimberly Hotel on 50th Street, her display for dealers and agents was sold out.

Enthused by the response, Sharbari is gearing up for another choreographed fashion show in September — this time in the West Coast of US. The event will be presented by KMP, the brand promoters who launched Sharbari globally with The Noveau Male fashion show in Kolkata last year.

Besides retailing from local outlets in the US, Sharbari's creations will also be marketed from the newly launched Sharbari Studio in San Francisco. Sharbari has her own Web site, www.sharbaridatta.com, designed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Recently, the Web site was refurbished to reflect her presence in the international market.

Sharbari says that the Web site is meant for clients, mediapersons and students of fashion looking for a ready-reckoner on her work. Says Roopen Roy, Managing Director, PwC, "The Web site has complete information on the designer and her work. It has catalogues of her fashion-wear as well as accessories designed by her. Visitors can find out about upcoming events or new design lines, and also order from the online catalogues."

Hark back to heritage

Daughter of the celebrated Bengali poet, Ajit Datta, Sharbari grew up in a culturally rich environment... .the rhythms of poetry on the one hand and dance and music on the other. She graduated from Presidency College and did her Master's in Philosophy at Calcutta University. Yet, arts remained an enduring love.

"It was a bleak world of stripes and checks that I gate-crashed into. The most daring sartorial adventure man could imagine was a silk tie that has, over the years, managed to shift from diagonal bands to paisleys and floral motifs. Or, a dhoti with a border and a kurta with modest embroidery at the neck and shoulders," recalls Sharbari.

"The traditional cuts and styles that you have seen in period films found a special place in my works. When I started it was a new concept. They said it was effeminate but I changed all those notions."

She "pities men with dull wardrobes. The West has enslaved us to notions of masculine dress codes, forcing Indian men to turn away from their rich heritage. Both men and women in our country were fond of dressing up — from Mohenjodaro to the Mughals," she says.

Sharbari never tires of pointing out that sartorial flair wasn't confined to aristocratic finery such as the sherwani, angrakha, piran and bandhgala. "The ingenious weaves, colours and cut of folk costumes offer breathtaking variety too," she says. She believes that fashion trends move both in a linear and circular manner. The elaborate styles of a bygone era of leisure-and-pleasure are coming back with a vengeance.

To keep her designs exclusive, Sharbari draws directly on cloth and preserves no copies. Her specially trained tailors weave her freehand strokes into intricate embroidery. Her creation is unique because her idiom is an inventive fusion of different art traditions, evolved into an elegant expression distinctly her own. Cave and folk art, Egyptian murals, calligraphy from West and East Asia, still life, pop art and Picasso, miniatures, Hindu mythology — Sharbari inventively fuses different art traditions to produce unique designs of her own.

Go for gold

Turning the `diamonds are a woman's best friend' adage on its head, Sharbari recently launched a range of diamond accessories for men. Earlier, she had showcased her range of jewellery for men at a show sponsored by the World Gold Council. She thinks its "difficult to make men change their rigid dressing code. They experiment less and do not easily accept new things." Also, it is not easy to sell an exclusive men's range.

If you're "man enough", take your pick... a white raw silk `angrakha' embroidered heavily in black and a zari lion motif; a matching black tissue dhoti with elaborate zari embroidery; a three-piece ensemble consisting of an `angrakha', shawl and dhoti; the blue raw-silk, short `angrakha' with intricate geometric designs in black and zari, with a matching silk shawl; a black tassar dhoti with a richly embroidered border. With all that and more, the metrosexual man can now throw the gauntlet to women too... if there is a Sharbari behind them.

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