(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
Doha: From the sand dunes to red carpet, east to west, from runway fashion shows to Oscars, this young lass is soaring high to international fashion arena carrying the Qatari and Indian customs, meet Manjulakshmi Bharathan, creator of her couture label Gills Manjulakshmi.
Did I mention she showcased in New York Fashion Week? C'mon that's just the tip of the iceberg, let me tell her journey towards her global success.
A sartorial force to reckon on, Manjulakshmi grew up in Qatar, carrying her southern Indian and Qatari traditions evidently seen on her masterpieces. It was not her dream at first to become a fashion designer, she even took an engineering course, but growing up, she loves textiles.
“When I was three to four year-old, I loved to fold clothes, I loved textiles, more than playing with toys, I grabbed textiles, and cupboard and instantly fell in love with it. Back at home, we have a lot of silk materials, and I usually re-arrange it,” she said.
Most of the young people these days know what they want to be when they grow up, and with Manjulakshmi, it came naturally but not until she hit college.“By 12th grade, I was not thinking to be a designer, everyone wanted to have a profession like in medicine, engineering. And I took engineering at that time. There was a university in India that started fashion designing. I enrolled, passed the exam and I got in.”
“I didn't know what to do after I completed university, my [thesis] project then was a home furnishing set from pine leaves, which is a call for sustainability. This project was even selected in a French university and offered me a job in France, but I didn't take the job, instead flew back to Qatar where my family is living,” she explained.
Modest and sustainable, these two words describe her line of clothing aptly. It is not about selling, but each piece she makes has a story to tell.
As a young professor, Manjulakshmi has her own styling, thus a fashion statement.“Everyone was asking about what I wear. Since I loved mixing colours, people started recognising me. I matched a blue cap with pink outfit, and during that time they were all neutral colours. Now, people ask me to design a clothe for them, so I thought I should start a brand.”
In 2013, Gills Manjulakshmi was born. Years after, it has two little brand kids known as Aadima and Gills Man.
“In Gills, we use completely sustainable textiles. When I started the brand I had the vision that it should be something a person keeps in her wardrobe for 10 to 15 years. This is how old fashion brands used to be. I wanted something that can stand and tell a story,” she narrated.
While in Aadima, there is the organic label, a ready to wear line made entirely from organic materials, including linen. This came after her research on the magic of linen to cure cancer and its prevention, which was launched in 2015.
“I have this student who has a knee cancer which causes her severe pain, she went to Hamad Hospital and found out that it was in stage 2. After knowing this, I gave her pieces of linen and cotton to wear not mentioning what it is made of. She called me after wearing it and said it made her feel cool, while one experiences hot flashes when doing chemotherapy,” she said.
Knowing this made Manjulakshmi feel relieved, what she is doing has a purpose.
Prior to this, she had launched the“Think pink, wear green movement,” which is a call to wear naturals as a positive fashion vibe and for health.
“I had a customer who bought a battoulah (a metallic-looking fashion mask traditionally worn by women) during one of her engagements, people noticed it and everyone liked it. This was the one that I wanted to get from customers, knowing that your work is appreciated and used and reused even after many years, this is where sustainability comes in.”
Attention to detail, perfectly designed to your taste and liking, that's what separates Manjulakshmi from fast fashion. This custom-made 1.5 metre clothe took 360 hours to finish. Usually worn in weddings, the clothe is purely made of silk which you cannot get in Qatar.“This is hand-made with high-quality golden beads.”
Now comes the biggest breakthrough, the New York Fashion Week (NYFW) in 2018.
From Doha to New York, Manjulakshmi couldn't believe at first she is doing a fashion show in New York, more so at NYFW.“It was very challenging, I never thought that I will do NYFW but everything started very fast.”
A year after that comes the red carpet, the prestigious Academy Awards where Doha Film Institute CEO Fatma Hassan Alremaihi flaunted perfectly Majulakshmi's gown, which was also listed as best-dressed across leading publications internationally.
The said gown took a month to complete and is made up of 15 metres of pure silk with an asymmetrical cut cape with customised handmade neck detailing. This is purely a Qatari design.
There is so much more than Manjulakshmi breaking records. Imagine the thawb making it to New York is a big deal, this is where Gills Man came to rise, introducing Qatari fashion to the world in one of the fashion capitals in the world.
More than her brand, Manjulakshmi had been appointed in 2019 as the NYFW director of shoes, and biennial exhibits at NYFW. In 2020, she opened her door to movie styling, Olayan, a film directed by Khalifa Al Marri, which was part of this year's Ajyal's Film Festival.
“The movie was shot in a period format between 1990s and 2000s, it's not modern, and you have to do the styling on that era. It was very interesting and challenging for me because for you to put a character, you need to do a styling. The clothes the actor wears have a great impact on how he would be portrayed, a villain or a protagonist,” she said.
This was her first time working on a film which took 10 days to complete.
Fierce, root-driven, and determined, Majulakshmi's each work has a story to tell, a person to heal, and a tale to pass on. The black and gold details on her collection on Gills is a testament of the rich culture of Qatar; Aadami is on sustainability; and Gills Man is opening the doors for men wearing thawb internationally.
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