When Shania Twain was impressed!

It was a Swiss Red Cross charity event this May that got designer Varun Bahl a compliment he won’t forget. It was from singer Shania Twain, whom he was to design for at the event.

“She (Shania) is a fantastic singer; I love her music and I think she’s gorgeous too. I was the only Indian designer selected for the show and was to dress her,” he says.

To his credit, the That Don’t Impress Me Much singer was quite impressed by his collection. “She said she loved the clothes and green being her favourite colour, she said, ‘this guy can really handle green well’,” he recalls.

While Shania wasn’t too eager to don a sari, post the same event at a trunk show there, he was pleasantly surprised to see it being the hottest sell-out garment with other international guests. “The sari is a tough garment to handle but the West is opening up to it and essentially to Indian wear as a whole. Kalidar kurtas and anarkalis are becoming a rage there,” he informs.

The perception has led him to create outfits that the West can relate to. “I call it ‘Indian with a twist’. I’ve done India in the Elizabethan era, Indian with Japanese influences and I also did Indian with Russian influences — Faberge eggs on prints and anarkalis with fake fur trimmings. The outfits are feather-light.”
Varun’s also busy preparing for the upcoming couture week in Mumbai. “I don’t like to use the term ‘couture’, it’s bespoke really,” he says. “But I’m really glad the show is happening here. I think you can go wild with ‘couture’, to me it’s a marriage of fantasy and signature,” he ends.