FASHION HISTORY- THE PIONEER INDIAN FASHION ROHIT KHOSLA
Written by- Kalyani Kala, Fashion Business Management, ISDI. Faculty- Belinda Bawa
Before the architect can make the layout of a building comes the man who’s vision makes the architect think. In the case of building one of the strongest hubs of fashion market in the world- India, the visionary role was played by Rohit Khosla. A short yet successful life of a man who laid down the first bricks of India’s growth in the world of fashion, yet sadly so, he couldn’t witness the spring of his planted seeds.
To bring about a change in a culture and tradition driven country was just beginning to be an idea with a slight drift towards medium saic fashion industry. By the early 1980s, the first generation of Indian fashion designers started cropping up, including Satya Paul. However, it was Rohit Khosla (1958–1994) who became a pioneer in the fashion industry, when he co-founded Ensemble” in 1987, with Tarun Tahiliani, Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla and others. Though the “Anarkali-style” has been around ever since, it was first popularised after Mughal-e-Azam (1969). It was Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla, who inspired by costumes of Mughal courtesans and Meena Kumari’s costumes in Pakeezah (1975), introduced the floor-length Anarkali-style of churidaar-kurta in 1988, which soon became the Indian version of the ball gown.
This is how the era of the Indian ‘fashion designer’ began. Rohit Khosla (29 November 1958–16 February 1994) was a pioneer of contemporary fashion industry in India. Khosla studied in England, worked with designers in New York, but returned to India to start his own label in 1987, along with his sister, designer Rohini Khosla.
BACKGROUND
Born in November 1958 to Usha and Kamal Khosla in an affluent punjabi family, Rohit had always dreamt of becoming a fashion pioneer. After graduating from high school at The Doon School, Dehradun, Rohit attended a foundation course in art and then went on to study fashion at Kingston University. He had by then found in himself the desire and right mindedness to dig deeper into fashion and make what it takes to bring the change to his native culture towards fashion. In college, his contemporaries were Nick Coleman, John Richmond and Helen Storey.
Back in India from a fashion course at Kingston Polytechnic in London in 1986, he descended on an unformed Indian fashion landscape that relied solely on tailors and talented boutique-owning aunties who could throw prints together. Ritu Kumar had already cornered the wedding market for affluent Punjabis, and later became the designer of choice for international beauty pageant contestants who went on to win the Miss Universe (Lara Dutta), Miss World (Aishwarya Rai, Yukta Mookhey, Priyanka Chopra) and Miss Asia Pacific (Dia Mirza) titles, among others. But it was Khosla who first brought ready-to-wear fashion to India’s parched shores.
Rohit Khosla was India’s Greatest Designer. The mere mention of his name leads to many evocative memories. That of a great designer who everyone recognizes as the founder of the modern Indian couture movement. That of a creative soul who was gone too soon, leaving his imprint on every fashion professional’s mind forever.
NAME BUILDING
In those days, it was considered a bold step to enter fashion, especially when one had such a high profile qualification. Rohit Khosla was the first Indian fashion designer to launch a haute couture label. His family was extremely supportive of his fashion career. In his short life, Khosla spearheaded major contributions to the Indian fashion industry.
As soon as he launched his eponymous label in 1987, he delved deep into the textiles and fabrics of India for inspiration. He was the first to cut voluminous kurtas in crinkled cottons, and used jute rope as embroidery. He had artist Gopika Nath paint on lengths of tussar silk, and geometrified Gujarati mirrorwork like nobody ever had. But more than that, what he did was galvanise an entire industry that really had nothing going for it.
JJ Valaya interned under him, and Ranna Gill, Sonam Dubal and Aparna Chandra assisted him in his initial years. Rina Dhaka started her fashion line at Khosla’s atelier because he encouraged her to make clothes and she didn’t have tailors. “We would hang out at Rohit’s studio and talk about fabrics, and he would push me to try new things,” she says.
In fact, it was at the first fashion show that Khosla, Tarun Tahiliani, Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla and American designer Neil Bieff put together, that Rohit Bal was asked to create a line of menswear. “That’s how he inspired you; he made you do things you didn’t think were possible,” says Bal, whose men’s collection sold out on the spot.
Khosla’s talent, though, was too great to be contained simply in the making of clothes. He was also India’s first stylist. Mehr Jesia, Shyamoli Varma, Noyonika Chatterjee and Madhu Sapre came alive in shoots he created with photographer Prabuddha Dasgupta. He transformed Garden Vareli’s printed polyester saris into covetable drapes fit for Delhi’s society queens who had just begun appearing on the newly launched party pages.
Biography- VANGUARD
He has quoted in his biography Vanguard, penned by Rohini Khosla, Studying in England was pure bliss — ideas just flowing, fabrics everywhere and fashion obsessive people all around me. He entered the Indian fashion scene when it was still a nascent industry and left his hallmark.
ENSEMBLE
In 1987, he co-founded Ensemble, India’s popular designer label store in New Delhi, with Tarun and Sal Tahiliani, which started with five labels: Tarun Tahiliani, Rohit Khosla, Neil Bieff, Amaya, Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla.
NIFT
In 1986, the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India opened the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) in Delhi with the help of the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. It played an important role in bringing in locally trained fashion designers. By 2010, it had developed 15 branches across India, and smaller private fashion institutions had also developed. Also in 1987, Tarun Tahiliani and his wife Shailja ‘Sal’ Tahiliani, founded Ensemble, India’s first multi-designer boutique in Mumbai.
Not only was Khosla a designer and a stylist, he was also a mentor and pioneer in every sense of the word. “There is no question that Indian fashion wouldn’t be where it is today had it not been for him,” says Bal. To this day, he credits his success as a designer to Khosla.
It takes a lifetime to achieve a position from where a person doesn’t need to look back from. Then be it a lifetime of a hundred years or be it that of Rohit Khosla. A short lived life of the very mentor of foundation builders of Indian Fashion. A legend who’s story may not fancy the internet over the Sabyasachi’s and Raghvendra’s of today but a story that lives afresh in minds and hearts of everyone associated with making their bread with Indian fashion. He was and still is an inspiration for not only designers but everyone who is digging grounds to lay their first brick in the Indian fashion industry.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rohit Khosla | Dribbblehttps://dribbble.com/rohitkhosla
Rohit Khosla — Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohit_Khosla
