Tarun Tahiliani is finally over his imposter syndrome

Some might say 2024 has been the year of India’s fashion OGs. It was bittersweet with Rohit Bal’s last show and dance down the runway, ecstatic when India’s supers from 50-year-old Sheetal Mallar to 40-something Lakshmi Rana stole the spotlight show after show, viral when Diet Sabya threw back to the undisputed Indian fashion icon Rohit Khosla, and fascinating as we watched the resurgence of Tarun Tahiliani.

The 61-year-old designer has had quite the year. It started off with the bride of the year, Radhika Merchant, in custom Tarun Tahiliani (TT) couture as her final look at the hastakshar ceremony in Jamnagar and continued as she and her guests went on to sport more TT through the course of the wedding. Even Kim Kardashian attended the wedding’s ashirwad ceremony in a custom TT ensemble. While his campaigns have often starred society’s who’s who, this year got a Gen Z glow-up with stars Alaya F and Gurfateh Pirzada, plus fuckbois in plunging pec-necks led by Vedang Raina. And then, over a single weekend in Delhi, he led a baaraat flanked by Ranbir Kapoor for Tasva (his festive-focussed menswear label) the day after he launched the current jewel in his crown his luxury prêt collection, OTT, at Lakmé Fashion Week. If that wasn’t quite enough, barely a month later, the TT Annual Parade returned to Art Mumbai to celebrate craft through song, dance, art, and plenty of drama including the sight of Kalyani Saha Chawla, Sabina Chopra, Reshma Bombaywala, and Tasneem Mehta, draped in pastel zari saris woven in Kanchipuram, sipping on champagne as they were driven down the catwalk by a brooding driver in a buggy—borderline ridiculous, but absolutely Insta-worthy. TT’s having fun, and it’s showing!

The highlight for him, though, has been OTT. “Say it like, Oh TT,” he coos in his signature baritone. “Luxury prêt has been my first love. It took me over three decades to come back to it.” On December 12, 1987, TT, whose label was then called Ahiliani, put on a show at Ensemble in what was then called Bombay. Models strutted around at the salon-styled show in silk topis, jackets, pencil skirts, and mul anarkalis paired with little jackets. But while he made it with his wife, Sal, to the Bombay magazine cover a week later, India was not ready for luxury prêt. Instead, what followed was a deep dive into Indian craft and textiles, and the birth of his ‘India Modern’ aesthetic, be it in championing the drape or making heritage embroideries lighter and more accessible, with a few prêt collections along the way.

At his cavernous studio in Gurugram, the walls are transformed into mood boards that look like Henri Cartier-Bresson’s India on one side and versions of Raja Ravi Verma paintings on the other, each board exposing collections to come. The floors below are abuzz with pattern-makers, designers, archivists, embroiderers, and tailors, alongside conference rooms housing the suits with their PowerPoint presentations. His studio and brand are growing by the day. Since Aditya Birla Fashion Retail Limited (ABFRL) picked up a 33.5 per cent stake in 2021, TT is juggling the subsequent corporatisation along with his steady run of collections, from couture and ready-to-wear to accessories. Tasva, his masstige menswear collaboration with ABFRL, is run out of the equally massive studio next door. And in between (maybe because of) these two behemoths, TT is more ravenous than ever for luxury prêt.

“For my first 20, even 30 years, I felt like a complete imposter. When I staged my first show, I didn’t even know what a placket was. Don’t worry, I learnt—I was a quick study. But over the years, you have good seasons, you have bad seasons. Your necklines and hemlines are too high or they’re too low. People tell you what to do, say, and design; they love you, then they hate you. Soon you’re burnt out. So I finally stopped running on the treadmill of fashion,” he confesses. The pandemic became his time to reassess and reset. “It was guiltless time off. Even as we were running food drives for our factory workers, finding work for our craftspeople, dealing with the economic backlash, and even some heartbreaking personal losses. I got ample time to consider and think about why I do what I do.”

He spent months thinking alongside his own archives and even put together his book, Tarun Tahiliani: Journey to India Modern (Roli Books). The project was a way for him to exorcise his fashion demons and fortify a new way of doing things. While he had always admired Karl Lagerfeld, he admits, “He was a genius but a maniac, a workaholic. His work was his life—he wasn’t interested in anything else. I wanted more: I’m also a father, I have varied interests and balance is key to staying true to my voice.” It was the stories of designers like Brunello Cucinelli and Miuccia Prada that gave him a renewed sense of purpose, “I love the way she ran up the Met stairs, not wanting to be seen. And look at her brands. Miu Miu is having the best year ever. I read up on how Brunello came from nothing and built a massive brand, but stays true to what he wants. I was inspired by that.”

At the end of it, the boomer designer had decided—all the data, be it Gen Z market predictions, social media relevance, EMV ratings, even what the next-in-line were doing, had to be put aside. “I was just going to trust my own voice. I’ve been around long enough. I understand market forces, know enough about fashion, and have an aesthetic that is all mine. And while I deeply admire and respect, say, what Gaurav Gupta or Amit Aggarwal do (did you see his last show, WOW!), that’s not what I do, right? I’m much more classicist and my interest is, and will remain, the drape.”

In his bridal couture, TT has done away with what he calls the “Jodhaa Akbar and Royals of India costumery” in favour of his now signature aesthetic. Cinched waists, easy-to-wear apsara-style drapes, finer but lighter ari and chikan embroidery, and a colour palette of ivory, pastels, gold, and dusty muted tones proudly dominate his light-weight couture collections. “I cannot do maroon velvet and gold brocade, it’s just not me,” he says.

With his aesthetic unapologetically locked down now, he’s focusing on his new baby. “OTT was a response to the fact that I’ve always loved making luxury prêt, from the time we did Milan.” TT was the first Indian designer to show at Milan, back in 2002. Chikan tunics with plunging necklines and cigarette trousers, digital-printed and embroidered tees, corsetry, concept saris, jackets of all kinds—OTT carries all of these forward, but in a 2024 avatar. “Look at what I’m wearing right now, I’m in a bundi and sweatpants. You can’t enter my design department without spotting a litter of crop tops on my designers. The way we dress has changed and as a designer, I want to create wearable everyday dressing for the new India around us. Yes, it’s a niche market, but all my markets are niches in themselves. That’s India for you.”

OTT takes TT’s now massive repertoire of craft but uses it sparingly. Dhotis, saris, even lehengas are used as inspiration to create easy-to-wear separates, prints from artists like Ram Kumar find their way onto jackets, overlays, and trenches. This is not a collection pandering to Gen Z alone; it’s also meant for the women who have always loved TT’s brand codes, with their careful play of femininity, drape, and sophistication. You can see these pieces being worn for brunches and cocktail parties; some, you’ll even get away with at the office. But OTT goes beyond being just a new brand with a new retail plan (stores will be opening across Indian cities from next year). For TT, it’s a coming-out party of sorts—one at which he’s loudly claiming that he’s done his time and now, he’s playing by his own rules.