Rajesh Pratap Singh wants to dress your home too

Walk into any Rajesh Pratap Singh store in the country and your olfactory senses will be met with the pleasantly musky scent of tangerine and neroli, custom-blended for the brand. The Kala Ghoda outpost in Mumbai is no different. Spread across two floors, the expansive space houses the brand’s menswear and womenswear collections on the ground floor, with a bespoke consultation studio tucked away at the back. This is where you’ll find the designer behind the brand, Rajesh Pratap Singh himself, in his usual uniform of a white shirt—he has several specially made for work—tinkering with a new experiment. The second floor now houses the brand’s soft furnishings line, Pratap Home, which makes its debut in India this week.

Singh has never been one to chase trends or even adhere to the fashion calendar. Instead, he lets the work do the talking, trusting that those drawn to its understated appeal will find their way to him. A 1994 graduate of NIFT-Delhi, he cut his teeth at Italian menswear label Marzotto before launching his own label in 1997. He went on to lend his design sensibilities to Satya Paul while building his own practice, showing at Paris Fashion Week, exhibiting at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, and opening stores across Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, and Bengaluru.

Even before entering the Mumbai store, you’ll spot a paper interpretation of the brand’s signature pintuck technique hanging in the window: a poofy, cap-sleeved dress. Created by folding and stitching narrow strips of fabric, the technique gives the material its distinctive three-dimensional striped texture. It recurs across the selvedge shirts, kurtas, jackets, and bandhgalas displayed on the ground floor. The palette for these pin-tucked garments, alongside almost everything else, stays muted, except for one section of the womenswear rack, where brocade pieces make a riotous case for reds, blues, and golds.

Upstairs, the main event mirrors the same textile language into the domestic realm, each product proudly showing off its self-finishing seams. The collection is displayed in a hospital-room-inspired setting—a somewhat revival of the set from the brand’s autumn/winter 2015 catwalk. Minimalist linen bedsheets, cushions, and quilts dress the beds, separated by sheer curtains that riff on the pintuck and selvedge details found downstairs. The blue-and-white quilts feature a ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ print, and block-printed and embroidered table sets come in indigo denim and cotton voile. There’s also breathable loungewear and sleepwear to match. A long table occupies one half of the room, laid with table linen and geometric candelabras.

Above, chandeliers lined with test tubes add another layer of eccentricity to the room. Just like the floor below, one corner of the room is lit with vibrantly coloured tile samples, while the rest quietly beckons in muted colours. If the hospital beds aren’t intriguing enough, the walls on this floor are a gallery unto themselves, with real heavy-metal ship portholes bolted into them. Their circular frames are refitted as display cases for miniature figurines dressed in custom RPS.

Ahead of Pratap Home’s India debut, we sat down with the designer to talk about the collection, mountains and deserts, hospitals, and the ideas that continue to shape his design practice. Excerpts from the conversation:

How would you describe Pratap Home in three words?

Pure, rare, free.

What drew you to soft furnishings, and did you approach designing for the home differently from designing for the body?

It’s pretty similar to designing clothes; the function just gets a little different. We’ve been doing homeware for a while, but this is the first time we’re showing it here in India. We make various kinds of products, and these are some things that came under the purview of home. It gives us a nice platform to show experiments. Over the years, we’ve worked with a lot of different materials, and we just felt that slowly it was time we started putting them out. I don’t work on collections or seasons.

Is there a category you particularly enjoyed working on, or one that challenged you more than you expected?

It’s more about the material, not the final product. Metal and glass [used in the chandeliers and candelabras] are very interesting and exciting to me. I love the texture, the feel, and the process of making them. I love the way they can be adapted. But we fail more often than we succeed. Many things go wrong every day. I don’t see it as challenging, though, because it’s an enjoyable process.

The campaign is shot in a hospital-room setting, which is an unexpected backdrop for a homeware line. What were you thinking?

It just happened. I spend a lot of time in hospital rooms, and I like hospitals. It’s just an expression of that. It’s a space I’m familiar with, and it’s something everybody should be familiar with. It’s the first and the last thing you see.

Would you be open to designing a hospital room one day?

Happily.

Fashion designers have been moving into homeware for some time now—Sabyasachi, Ritu Kumar, and, more recently, Anavila. Why do you think so many designers are obsessed with entering the soft furnishing space?

I think it’s a natural progression. Fashion and home are not two different disciplines. When you’re making things, you’re making things. At least that’s how I see it. So, I’m sure it’s the same for them.

It’s been nearly three decades since you launched your own label. How has your design sensibility evolved over the years?

I forget a lot of things. For me, the next thing is far more important than what’s happened. This is a very difficult question to answer.

Yesterday I was printing on something which didn’t go right, and I know I’ll never use that fabric again. It was a certain kind of a bouclé. We were trying to do an experiment where two printers were printing at the same time. It didn’t work. We try to make something every day, and I think that’s been the case from day one. So, it’s a constant process. We don’t work on collections. We are not part of the fashion system. Whenever we have things ready, we show them. At times we have nothing to say, so we keep our trap shut.

What references do you find yourself returning to for inspiration? What were some of the references behind this collection?

Inspiration is a big word, so we don’t use it. For visual references, we always go back to the desert and the mountains. That’s something that is always present at the core of my work.

How does a 30-year-old brand stay relevant today? Who is your audience?

I’ve heard people ask, “How do we stay relevant to the younger generation?” But the kids are still coming and buying the same damn thing I made 30 years ago. Our audience is a certain kind of person who understands our language, and they are the only people we are dressing. It’s a person who likes to know how things are made, who gets involved with, or at least appreciates, the process. A person who probably likes deserts and mountains.

Is there a material or technique you’ve been particularly obsessed with lately? Or a discipline you’d like to explore in the future?

The only discipline is making things. Period.

Currently, it’s metal and glass as materials. I’m not obsessed, but it’s the learning that makes it obsessive. You’re obsessed till you’ve perfected it, and then you find something new to perfect and obsess over.

What does your media diet look like? Are you reading or watching anything good you’d recommend?

Right now, I was listening to Eddie Vedder. That’s my timepass jam. My favourite film is The Mirror. It’s such a beautiful film. The cinematography... Each frame is outstanding. Everyone should watch it. I always go back to reading The Catcher in the Rye. It’s a short book from my childhood.

What do you think the Rajesh Pratap Singh customer reads?

Books about deserts and mountains.

Tell me about your obsession with deserts and mountains. What are your favourite places to go?

I like travelling to see deserts and mountains, of course. I love Rajasthan and the Himalayas. Lately, I have been going to Iceland, which is a desert of some sorts. I also love Patagonia. It’s not very high-altitude, but the terrain makes it feel like it is. But the weather is strange and can get tricky really fast, so you have to be careful.

Finally, what does your own home look like? Does it reflect your design sensibility, or is it somewhere you switch off from work?

For me, home is just a quiet and safe place, so I don’t really work on it too much. I’m married and I have two kids, so it’s their home first. If it was just me, my home would be an empty white box with a bed. My daughter is the boss at home. It’s her thing. She has her own language.

Pratap Home is available in-store and on Rajeshpratapsingh.com