Masaba Gupta
Her 1.2 million Twitter followers may shudder at the thought but there was a time when Masaba Gupta was indifferent to fashion. As a career option, anyway. What she really wanted to do was join Shiamak Davar’s dance group professionally but her mother Neena Gupta wouldn’t have it. Next she tried her luck with music but hit the wrong note. The acting attempt fizzled out before it started and Gupta ended up joining SNDT to study fashion. She’d always loved clothes, and had inherited her mother’s knack for putting together stray pieces to create eye-catching outfits. She hated the course but, in her second year, her clothes got noticed by Lakme’s Anil Chopra, and designer Wendell Rodricks, whom she considers her mentor, suggested she apply for Lakme Fashion Week. She did, and the rest is history. People loved the youthful, print-happy, drunk-on-colour outfits and orders started pouring in. Gupta had no experience of the fashion world but with her mother’s help, set up a unit and met the orders. Not everything sold, but Masaba Gupta, the fashion brand, was launched. At age 20. That wasn’t the only first. In 2011, at age 23, Gupta signed up as Fashion Director for Satya Paul, one of India’s oldest and most revered labels. She worked there for two years and drove the brand towards a younger customer base.
Today, back flying solo, running the House of Masaba with a presence across India, the Middle East, Silicon Valley and Singapore, the designer still works intensively with prints. Marrying modernism with tradition, turning mundane everyday objects into magical fabrics, Gupta is never shy to experiment. What she will not do, however, is bridal wear. “I learnt from my mother not to do things that are not natural to me. People tell me the real money is in bridal not prêt but that’s not me. I don’t want to go there,” she says.
Gupta has won several awards, featured in Forbes India 2017 list for ‘30 Under 30’ and is one of the most followed designers on social media. She was also the world’s first designer to do an Instagram show. Little wonder then that brands bend backwards to collaborate with the young creator. So far, she’s obliged Titan Watches, Fiama Di Wills, Tata Nano and Oppo. And Lakme, of course.
