Their ideologies may be different and the netas may be fighting tooth and nail on daily basis, but when it comes to personal liking, the political parties aren’t that different. In fact, they all bow down t the creations and designs of one man, Mumbai based fashion designer Madhav Agasti.
The owner of the Bandra-based Madhav Men’s Mode, Agasti (64) is a well known man in national capital. Since years, Agasti has been designing kurtas, jackets and bandghalas for stalwarts like Lal Krishna Advani, Nitin Gadkari, Shahnawaz Hussain (BJP), Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde (Congress), Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel (NCP), Farooq Abdullah (National conference) and PA Sangma to name a few. Agasti has just returned from Lutyen’s Delhi on Friday where he has gone with his catalogues. “That’s routine,” he says.
MMM has several chief ministers as high profile clients Chhattisgarh’s CM Raman Singh and Bihar’s CM Nitish Kumar; Maharashtra’s CM Prithviraj Chavan is his latest client. Agasti’s business flourishes with world of mouth publicity. “I have been stitching kurtas, chudidaar, jackets and bandhgalas for years for deputy CM Ajit Pawar and ministers Harshwardhan Patil, Suresh Shetty, Jaidutt Kshirsagar, Sunil Tatkare, Dilp Valse Patil and Patangrao Kadam” says Agasti.
Agasti considers Ajit Pawar and Harshwardhan Patil as the “two most stylish leaders” in the state.
Junior Pawar is believed to have started the trend of colourful kurtas instead of white khadi.
Suresh Shetty, the minister of Public Health and Family Welfare (Maharashtra), says, “Agasti is stiching kurta-pajama for me for more than 25 years now. He is like a friend. It doesn’t make any difference that he designs for rivals also.”
When asked about new trends among political class, Agasti says, “The pant and jacket combination has just started. Moreover, instead of straight cut, netas now prefer a round cut at the neck for both their kurtas and bandghalas.” He also adds that now linen is preferred over khadi by the netas due to its richness and soft texture.
Agasti started off as a Bollywood designer in 1974 with a shop in Dadar. He worked for over 200 films mostly designing for villains. Mogambo Puri’s character in Mr India was designed by Agasti. “But designing for films is a different affair now,” says Agasti who stopped designing for films almost a decade ago.
Agasti’s older son Rahul is has joined the father’s profession and runs a store at Juhu while his younger son Shantanu is helping him with the contemporary designs.
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