Dream team

SA heritage cantonment house in Bengaluru, restored by designer Vinita Chaitanya, is home o couturier Tarun Tahiliani’s new boutique.

- KOMAL BASITH, RITUPRIYA BASU

TARUN TAHILIANI HAS a new address in the south with his latest flagship store in Bengaluru. Nestled in the heart of the city, the store is housed in a heritage home of a kind rarely seen in Bengaluru anymore—a cantonment house with traditional, instantly recognisable gable roofs, known as monkey tops, featuring lattices punctuated by embellishments and traditional terrazzo tiles. It is the tiles which first drew the designer to the property. I grew up in a building right next to the Taj in Bombay, which featured the exact same tiles and the same high ceilings, so walking in felt wonderfully familiar,” says Tahiliani. We wanted to keep things as intact as we could,” he says of his latest project, designed in collaboration with his friend, interior designer Vinita Chaitanya.