Innovative fashion with Aniket Satam

For generation next designer Aniket Satam, creating something that’s out of the box is not as much a challenge as it is to innovate within the de riguer.

A litlle  more than a year old in the fashion industry, Aniket Satam is still treading baby steps. Quite confidently might we add, going by the positive reviews his collection notched up at the recently held Lakme India Fashion Week.

Talking to us minutes after alighting from a Mumbai local, “Trains are the quickest way to travel in Mumbai” he jests before talking about how his entry to the Lakme Fashion Week in August was such a last minute idea.

“ A week can change your life!” he says recalling how he sent his entry literally at the 11th hour. “I submitted my entry five days before the last date for entries and so it was a gentle shock when I was selected.” “I think what you do without conscious effort works,” he rues recalling how his very well-thought out entry got rejected the time before last.

Talking about the collection he showcased last month, the one that’s got him all the attention, Aniket says, “The collection was called Aarambh and my thought process behind it was that if 2012 was going to be the end of the world, as he doomsdayers predict, then this would be the last collection I’d be presenting. That’s also the reason I chose an anti-climactic name like Aarambh.”

Delving in to talk about the details of his A/W  ’12 collection, Aniket elaborates, “The ink splatter pattern on the dresses suggests the life we’ve lived, the silk / viscose fabric signifies life’s layered complexities and the gold spoiling on the dresses symbolises hope. I have also used lots of trinkets like ghungroos and belts because us Indians get a lot of joy from adding these little things as detailing on our clothes.”

A mass communications graduate who dabbled in advertising and public relations before getting into fashion, Aniket is happy with the way his collection has been received. “Aarambh has been getting a pretty good response. I’ve been getting enquiries from personal buyers and  brands abroad,” he enthuses.

For the newbie designer, however, the first season is all about “learning what the buyer wants and also what the media wants.”
Now, in a flat world where regular people are abreast of international fashion trends, Aniket avers that as a fashion designer, “there’s a need to know what’s happening around” but the trick, he says, “lies in identifying one’s niche even as you are delivering to the mass media.”

Which is why he is not hugely sold on the idea of creating whacky, bordering-on-bizarre clothes. “I believe in delivering something that everyone wants because the thing with creating avant garde clothes is they might get you featured in high-end glossy magazines but what do you beyond that?” he questions before noting in a rather savvy manner, “As a brand, you’ve got to deliver something that’s expected even as you push the envelope within that norm. I think the main challenge today is to stay within the box and still create something fresh.”