Beauty AND THE BEST

SABYASACHI's limited-edition lipstick collection is here! These 10 delicious shades, with stunning packaging and a quality that speaks of the designer's excellence, each have a story to tell.

- Ambika Muttoo

"Why lipstick," we asked Sabyasachi Mukherjee, arguably India's (and South Asia's) brightest and most globally-recognised name in fashion. For context, this interview happened before the drop of the new Estée Lauder X Sabyasachi limited-edition lipstick collection. Ten shades, available in satin matte and ultra matte formulations, with a colour palette that beautifully whispers (we don't shout in this house) 'India. A collaboration that - we're calling it - will break the internet (and sales.) Sabyasachi's response? "To answer that, I would have to say - why beauty?"

In the conversation that followed, we learned that this is an idea that was sown two decades ago, given how Sabya observes the future. "A lot of people think that I'm like a fashion mafia because, if I look at the kind of girls that I've dressed up - all the Bollywood girls, whether Rani [Mukerji], Vidya [Balan], Asin, Aishwarya [Rai Bachchan]. Bipasha [Basu], Deepika [Padukone], Priyanka [Chopra Jonas], Katrina [Kaif]. Alia [Bhatt] - they're all very diverse, but, when they wear Sabyasachi, they all have a very unified beauty look," he explains. "Most girls would do a smokey eye, a pale lip, centre-parted hair with a bindi, gajra... Aishwarya perfected the red 'Sabya' lip in Guzaarish. I think most actresses have done two iterations of Sabya beauty: smokey eyes with pale lips, or they've done a winged eyeliner and a red lip. Both have come from very deep influences. One has come from old Hollywood, Madonna, old Bollywood, silent films, [Marilyn] Monroe. And the other one has come from the Kama Sutra, Frida Kahlo, Mira Nair, Bharatnatyam, Kathak..."