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Benita Sen

Forget designers, even the traditional darzi doesn't give you home service. But here's one couturier who offers you both his time and ear for that dream dress.

It's fitting that you hear of Sayon Mitra before you see his work. After all, he's the designer whose USP is doorstep-design. No outlet of his own — not yet, and not for a while to come, anyway — no flurry of retail racks to whisk away from apart from `Intrigue', the affable Mitra's work is as subtle as his marketing.

His clientele includes NRIs wishing to carry a bit of home chic back with them, the wife of Kolkata's real estate magnate, model and actress Reshmi Ghosh's Miss India wardrobe for the national finals, authors and corporate dons.

The child who had the unusual knack of recognising brands of jeans even as a toddler, grew up battling traditional academia. But with few role models in Kolkata to build his dreams on, Mitra's earliest career plans included an MBA degree. It was when he saw the office of an adman that he realised creative chaos was what he wanted. Friends straying into fashion fuelled his resolve. However, his parents, a chartered accountant and a teacher of English, insisted he complete his graduation before specialising in design. "I kept my side of the bargain, barely scraping through B.Com, and then, I joined Bilams for a course in fashion," recalls Mitra.

Since then, although their son has chosen a path trod by few in their circle, his parents have been "a tremendous support" with nothing but faith in his talent.

Somewhere along, he realised it wasn't so much Indian clothes that he wanted to study as a more international sense of aesthetics. "For me, fashion means Valentino and Armani," says the man whose avowed style is tees and jeans teamed with boots or `mojri'. And so, the two-year Higher National Diploma at London College of Fashion suited him better, where he specialised in pattern cutting and surface ornamentation.

Returning to India in 2000 to launch his eponymous label, one of Mitra's early breaks was to dress model Reshmi Ghosh with a wardrobe of 15 outfits for the Femina Miss India finals. The piece de resistance in that collection was the outfit for the designer round, where the brief was to highlight traditional handwork. Mitra, whose USP is intricate detailing, chose a full-bodied red raw silk trouser and corset. The trousers, textured with red kantha stitches to reflect on Reshmi's Kolkata background, had cutwork jamevar as lining with the edges stitched with silk thread. The relief in colour came with emerald Swarovskis. This, like virtually every Sayon Mitra creation, is an exclusive, with the drawings consigned to the trashcan once the garment is ready.

Mitra's forte is his conviction in individual attention and his amazing interest in detail, whether to the client or to the outfit, which he calls "my baby". Most of his creations play with layering effects and textures that are a reflection of his London days. He offers clients painstaking attention like detailing on the back of the garment, to "make them feel the clothes I make for them are something special, something close to their hearts."

The to-the-home service began out of a need to show people his work, but soon, Mitra realised this could become his biggest asset even if he opens an outlet. "Without one-to-one interaction, the purpose of making these garments is lost," he says. Mitra enjoys meeting people, which he now transforms into a marketing mantra, and says that though this individual attention may be construed "as primitive and non-commercial, it gives me happiness."

Predictably, Mitra has met with comments on his similarity with the traditional darzi. "Somewhere," he reflects, the respect for a fellow craftsperson apparent, "It is the same work. But the way I treat my clients, a tailor would not. Besides, there is more technical know-how involved now, and far more sophistication, but yes, somewhere, there is a common thread."

If wishes were horses, Mitra would start the salon concept so that he could be with the client from the drawing board to the final stitch and help them share his dreams about each ensemble. But Sayon Mitra isn't only about an haute couture line. To balance both ends, he makes workaday clothes with equal élan and even does shirts for men, "everything apart from under garments," he laughs. However, whatever the purpose of the garment, Mitra enjoys playing with lines and structure to add something special.

For now, Kolkata is his turf for several reasons. He revels in the general aesthetic sense "at the grassroot level", which makes it easier for him to put his thoughts across to the artisans who, he believes, are amazingly skilled. What thrills him most, of course, are period clothes, apparent in his repeated use of boned corsets and he dreams of designing for an entire period film. If a Shekhar Kapur reads this space, it could well be Westward Ho for this devotee of design.

Picture by the author

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