Sabyasachi celebrates 25 years: "It’s an aspiration that belongs to India," says the designer

The first time I met Sabyasachi was during my first visit to his store. I stepped into his newest space at the ICP Fort Heritage building, where beautiful carpets, grand chandeliers, art books, and thoughtfully placed décor pieces greeted me. As I walked through the three-storey building, I tried to grasp the essence of a brand that resonates with (or at least is desired by) nearly everyone in the country. It was as grand, opulent, and magnificent as can be (and we are not exaggerating for effect). And the man behind it, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, was as poised, warm, and effortless as I had imagined him to be.

The Sabyasachi brand has become synonymous with luxury and maximalism, and has been for 25 solid years now. In fact, it has only elevated what couture means and what it means to celebrate India’s rich embroidery and handicrafts. On the sidelines of the grand celebration, we asked Mukherjee about his biggest takeaway from 25 years and his vision for the future of both the label and his personal journey.

Below are his exclusive comments for Bazaar India, along with excerpts from my past conversations with him.

Harper's Bazaar: 25 years of designing, reinventing, and creating collection after collection—what has been your biggest takeaway that you intend to take forward with not just the label but also Sabyasachi the person?

Sabyasachi Mukherjee: 25 years ago, I started Sabyasachi with ₹20,000 borrowed from my family and a small team of three employees. While fortunes have changed, the middle-class ambition and ideals remain. Sabyasachi no longer belongs to me; it is an aspiration that belongs to India. Today, we work with over 3,000 artists and employees across the country. Our singular goal is to restore and preserve the heritage arts and crafts of India to their full glory. I have always believed ours to be a First-World civilisation, where luxury was born and where it has always belonged. Together, we are creating India’s first global luxury brand.

HB: You are very particular about every aspect of your launch campaigns and the look and feel of the stores. How do you bring the ‘Sabya essence’ to everything you do?

SM: A brand needs to tell only one story. There has to be consistency across different aspects to create its identity—from what you eat in a brand’s store to how tea and coffee are served, what the bathrooms and changing rooms look like, the kind of music that is played, its packaging, the staff and their uniforms—everything contributes to the brand experience. It’s like coming home. Every brand needs to have its representation in everything it does.

People in Kolkata do elaborate tea and coffee services. We grew up as middle-class Bengalis, but my mother used to be very particular about tea, and always said that if you can afford it, tea should be served in China and not in porcelain. She had a very expensive tea set that she got as her wedding gift, and I remember she only said one thing, “Just because we are poor, doesn’t mean we should not have standards”. I live by it. Every brand should hold itself up to the standards that it projects.

HB: Your sense of Indian aesthetics and tradition is not just fabrics and motifs, it is also the little things like the use of alta in your campaign. Do you think these little things are an important part of building a perception for the audience?

SM: 100%. Like I said, a brand has to have consistency across everything—from the models who represent you, to their hair and make-up, the location, the music, all of it. Till date, I style and direct my own shoots. I sit with the hair and make-up teams and tell them the approach we need to take. It’s simple: when you are paying top money for my mind, then my mind should be at work.

I think one of the reasons why this brand is loved so much is because it has a very consistent voice.

HB: Do you think you’ve created your ultimate, most favourite collection yet? Or is it still in the making?

SM: The day a designer is satisfied with his collection, it’s the death of the designer. Every time I finish a collection, I tell myself, ‘My God, this is so bad, I need to improve it’. It’s a continuous journey. You have to keep going—that’s tenacity.

Design is not for the faint-hearted; it’s a relentless job that never ends. You have to motivate yourself to get better. Sometimes we fuss over the lining of a garment, something the customer will never know about, the press will never see. So, just changing the grammage of a piece of cloth for it to look and feel better is also an improvement for us. Some improvements and changes you can see, some you can’t, while some are just for the consumer to feel good about wearing the product. They may not know why they feel good or what changed in the mechanism, but it’s important they feel it.

Luxury is about changing things without making too much noise.

HB: Is the definition of luxury changing globally?

SM: Definitely. Luxury is becoming more personal. It is also becoming more about quality and less about marketing. Earlier, anything that could be marketed well was deemed luxury, but now it’s becoming more elusive. The customer can see through the garb of marketing and recognise it is not luxury anymore. For luxury to be able to sustain, it needs to become what true luxury was always about—refinement, craftsmanship, and quality.

Luxury clothing is how you feel in that clothing rather than how you look in it. For instance, if you see two black coats, one in cashmere and one in cotton, in a photograph, you won’t be able to tell one from the other; only the person wearing it will know the difference. Luxury has moved on to what reaction it evokes in a customer, and not in the people who are watching the customer.

HB: Is India's recognition in the luxury space limited to the handicraft industry and skilled craftsmen here?

SM: Luxury in India is equated to embroidery and handicrafts, and it’s lovely because it is the country's strength. If you can create consumption by exploiting the country’s resources, then you’re also building continuity of community and giving economic development at a grassroots level. I think it’s a win-win. Dior has acknowledged Chanakya (School of Craft). Indian handicrafts were always there in the limelight, but now they are here to stay.

Lead image: Lodovico Colli di Felizzano

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