Sugar Tuesday

Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s big moment at New York Fashion Week is here...but where are the clothes?

Designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s big debut at Olympus Fashion Week in New York is two days away and some of his collection is stuck in customs. But instead of sucking down Valium, shouting “you’re fired!” at some poor assistant or throwing any other kind of diva fit associated with the fashion world, the 31-year-old is coolly organizing a run-through with the clothes he does have. I’m watching him work at the SoHo showroom of People’s Revolution, the PR firm that represents him, and everybody’s breaking for lunch.

“I’m not really nervous,” says Sabyasachi, letting out a surprisingly casual laugh, considering everything that’s going on. “There is nothing else I can do now. I’m more curious to see people’s reaction.”

Sabyasachi—along with It-girls Erin Fetherston and Vena Cava—was named one of the 10 emerging designers by UPS, an honor that gives him the chance to show his Spring 2007 collection in the tents at Bryant Park. While he’s just now starting to generate buzz here in the U.S., Sabyasachi is one of India’s most coveted designers. From Kolkata, a bohemian at heart (he loves hitting up Anthropologie when in town), he graduated from the National Institute of Fashion Technology in 1999, wowed audiences during 2002’s Lakme India Fashion Week during which (he famously used his grandmother’s old saris and distressed them with acid and cigarettes) and was the first Indian to show at Milan fashion week. He then designed the costumes for the movie Black, launched a bed and bath line for lifestyles chain, Bombay Dyeing, and now he’s showing alongside Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan and Calvin Klein—the biggest names in American design. “This is the first year I’m not naming my collection,” says Sabyasachi. “I had an eclectic mix of inspiration—hand painted pottery, Frida Kahlo, Leonard Cohen songs—I couldn’t really build a story around it.”

He thinks about this for a minute and says, “I actually wanted to name the collection ‘For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her’ after the song by Simon and Garfunkel. It’s about these girls that you see, maybe at the bus station or maybe at the mall, and they leave a lasting impression on you because of the way they dress. They’re almost like characters—they’re very distinct and they remain in your mind for a very, very long time. You know you want to keep looking and you want to find that person once again.” Who knew Sabyasachi was such a romantic?

“It’s here!” Just then a staff member burst in with bulging cardboard boxes, the remaining clothes have arrived.

“Thank, god! Okay, lovely. Let’s pop the champagne,” says Sabyasachi, receiving “Wow, that was close” pats from the crew. And now I’m in paradise, standing in between racks of his glittery baby doll dresses, fierce voluminous sleeves and printed A-line numbers—Sabyasachi is giving me a sneak preview. And like an excited fashion dork I want to touch all of it. The silhouettes remind me of Chloe and Miu Miu. But his use of jewel tones, fabrics (he’s known to favor khadi) and embroidery give just the right amount of Indian touch to make the pieces unique without shouting, “I’m ‘ethnic’!” It doesn’t necessarily feel like an Indian designer created these clothes, but more like, “Here are some beautiful clothes from a designer who happens to be Indian.”

“Covering up is the new sexy,” says Sabyasachi about the big trend in baby dolls this season.

“The dresses are short but you don’t get to see much of boobs and arms.” A person can get an idea of a woman’s body but a lot of it is concealed as well. There’s a lot of innocence, but it’s a really grown-up innocence.” I ask who he sees wearing his clothes. “An independent, confident woman, someone who mixes high and low and doesn’t follow labels,” he says, adding that in the celebrity world, it would be Kirsten Dunst and Vanessa Paradis. “Someone not overtly glamorous, but almost like a nerdy bookworm who’s also very sexy.”

So far Sabyasachi has been written up in the Best in Show section of the New York Post and has been profiled in The New York Times. Already Saks Fifth Avenue and L.A.’s Tracey Ross, whose clientele includes celebs like Nicole Ritchie and Jennifer Lopez, have picked his line up. But selling his clothes isn’t the only thing he hopes to accomplish from fashion week.

“I want to break this mindset that all Indian designers are capable of doing is lehngas and saris,” says Sabyasachi, who plans to wear Gaultier for his show.
“I think it’s about time that people realized there is much more to [our fashion] than Bollywood and sequins. There are a lot of us who are breaking the barriers and telling the West that it’s not a country about sex and elephants and peacocks. There’s much more to it.”

Saturday morning, the UPS hub at Bryant Park is packed with fashion editors, buyers and good-looking young Indians. Mira Nair, Rani Mukherjee and Nigel Barker from America’s Next Top Model are seated in the front row. When the opening chords for Nirvana’s “All Apologies” begin, the models make their way down the runway. We see angsty girls, sophisticated hippies, Russian princesses—all dressed in deep red lips, librarian glasses and naked legs, and like those striking strangers at the bus stop, we can’t turn away.