Sonam Kapoor on the passions she picked up from her parents and what she’d be, if she didn’t have those in her life

Sonam Kapoor returns as Vogue India covergirl on their 10th anniversary. She belongs on the covers of fashion magazines because along with her producer/stylist/co-designer sister Rhea, she has been unabashed about the role clothing plays in their personal and public lives.

Art of looking good

“Even if I have to look like a bum, it has to look good,” she says with her trademark laugh. Kapoor dresses for comfort and for controversy, for ease and for excitement, for drama and for downtime. “I got films from my father and fashion from my mother,” says Kapoor. “Take these away from me, and I would probably be a librarian,” she laughs.

Trend-setter

For her first public outing during Saawariya, she wore a sequinned Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla anarkali (the designers are close family friends), followed by Sabyasachi, Anamika Khanna, Lanvin, Alberta Ferretti, Valentino and Dior. “People weren’t wearing clothes like that,” she says. 

At that time, ill-fitted low-slung jeans, sweetheart necklines, boho skirts and shiny satins dominated, what we like to call the Paris Hilton Effect. “I always loved fashion; it wasn’t about trends (for me).”