A different canvas
POOL|POOL 83

‘Painter and clothes-maker’ is how Payal Khandwala describes herself, and she has been much lauded for being both. Her eponymous fashion label features a dramatic recreation of her art through fabric.

A different canvas

How has your formal design education impacted your career?

PK: After a Diploma in Fashion from SNDT in Mumbai, I went on to acquire a BFA from Parsons School of Design, New York. I think my training in fashion certainly helped; to know the technicalities of pattern cutting, draping, and finishing goes a long way. But I think my experience in Fine Arts informs my clothes-making even more. It makes me look at clothing with a very different prism; it gives me a whole new perspective. I’m more concerned with many of the formal elements of art, composition, space, line, proportion, and color - and all of these things give the clothes a unique voice.

What is the story behind your label?

PK: The label was born in 2012 on an impulse more than a strategy. When I returned to India from New York, I couldn’t find timeless clothes I would have liked to wear… stylish, comfortable and still luxurious, dramatic even. So when the opportunity arose to show at Lakme Fashion Week, I thought it would be a nice shift in canvas. I felt if there were enough women out there like myself that felt the vacuum, then we would be successful.

 

What inspires your collections?

PK: Inspiration for a collection can come from the most innocuous of triggers; for instance, my SS16 collection was inspired by my then seven-year-old daughter’s geometry homework. I think if you have a curious eye and an open mind, inspiration is all around us. I work with a palette that I pick for the collection and once the direction and theme is in place, I work on the shapes, the drape and the silhouette. Some are studied extensions of what we do, the results of trial and error, while others are happy accidents.

This story is from the POOL 83 edition of POOL.

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This story is from the POOL 83 edition of POOL.

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