Ritu Beri, the 'selfish' designer

Beri was among the first Indian designers to work in Paris yet doesn't have a string of stores in India. She tells Lounge why not

- Pooja Singh

The first-person singular pronoun "I" comes up often when designer Ritu Beri speaks, though not in a self-indulgent way. It's a reflection of her strong sense of identity, of creating a niche in a world dictated by trends and keywords.

That's one of the reasons the designer launched Escape Goa, an immersive lifestyle space housed in a 200-year-old Portuguese villa in Socorro, earlier this year. Painted in her signature red-and-white colour combination, the space allows visitors to eat at a fine-dining restaurant overlooking a paddy field, enjoy performances by musicians and stand-up comics, listen to talks on various issues, explore pop-ups by homegrown brands that make accessories, perfumes and jewellery, and browse through Beri's resortwear. It's a relatively new retail concept that's popular in the West and finding a footing in India, where a designer curates a range of experiences under one roof.

Interestingly, Beri has no store besides the resortwear space at Escape Goa. She takes orders online and then works on designs. "I am not really a retail-oriented person who wants too many stores," explains Beri, who divides her time between Delhi and Goa.

In a career of three decades, Beri, who is in her early 50s, has racked up many firsts—the first Indian designer to showcase at the Paris Haute Couture Week (1999); the first to head a French fashion brand, Scherrer (2000; a three-year stint); the first to open the inaugural edition of Lakme Fashion Week (2000). In between, she's dressed the who's who of the world, from former US President Bill Clinton to actor Madhuri Dixit Nene, opened and shut a store in Paris, and sold her designs at popular multi-brand stores like London's Liberty and Paris' Galleries Lafayette.