Rocky S, the very bright, young, talented fashion designer is one of Bollywoods ace fashion designers, talks to Nisha Chainani about none other than fashion and movies.

What prompted you to enter into the field of fashion designing?
From a very early age I was always interested in clothes and I always wanted to dress myself up. Then when I joined college I wanted to buy clothes all the time, give suggestions to people on what to wear and what looks nice and that kind of thing. My only mental preoccupation at that point of my life seemed to be clothes, clothes, clothes, so one day I decided to take this very haunting interest in fashion a step further and do a course in fashion designing and see how passionate and interested I really felt.

My parents, when I suggested this to them, thought I had completely lost it. Because in their minds they thought I wanted to be a tailor! There was my father who was a chartered accountant, my brother who was into construction and my other brother who was into taxation and accountancy and me, the black sheep of the family, who wanted to be a tailor! It seemed like a preposterous idea to them, so I had to fight real hard to get my way which eventually I succeed in doing.

I joined an institute for fashion designing, but what really accelerated my growth in this field was my job at Roopam, which I got shortly after I joined this course.

At Roopam, you mean as an apprentice?
No way, as their official designer! They had come out with an ad in the paper saying that they were looking for a designer, so I applied for the position, went for the interview with only two or three sketches and I got hired as their official head designer! Can you imagine that! It was so exciting! Of course, in the beginning for the first one month or so I didn't have a clue as to what I was expected to do and how they functioned. But in time once I learnt the system I was putting in twelve hours of work everyday from eight in the morning to eight in the evening! And I loved every moment of it! It was challenging and exciting and
everyday was something to look forward too.

How long did you stay with Roopam?
I was with Roopam for about three years when I decided to move on. It happened when one day for a Roopam shoot I designed clothes for Manisha Koirala who liked the clothes I had designed for her very much. She then suggested that I design clothes for her for her films, so along with my job at Roopam I started designing clothes for Manisha privately. Then other producers approached me and asked me to design clothes for their stars and their movies, and that's how I can into contact with Akshay Kumar, Shilpa Shetty and Raveena Tandon and started designing for them on a regular basis. All this however was taking up too much of my time and Roopam was taking a back seat, so I gave up my job with Roopam and went all out with designing clothes for film stars.

So when did you open your boutique Rocky S on Juhu Tara Road?
I opened Rocky S about four and a half years ago, while I was still doing film work. At the time I was doing work for about nine actors/actresses and I was fed up because it wasn't creatively satisfying. I wasn't doing what I wanted to do. You see when you work on films there is the producer to listen too, the director, the artist, the character, the situation, etc. and I wasn't doing what I wanted to do! And I wanted to design clothes the way I felt like it and not for any specific situation, having to keep in mind a hundred and one things! I wanted to be spontaneous, impulsive, so I cut down on my film work and I opened
this boutique.

So who were these nine actors and actresses?
Well, there was Rekha, Sridevi, Akshay, Shilpa, Raveena, Sheeba, and a few other new comers. Then I cut down on everybody but Akshay to work on my store because quality work was not happening. But now once again slowly, slowly I have my hands full with new comers like Hrithik, Amisha, Aftaab, Priety Zinta, Vipasha Basu, and of course Akshay, Shilpa who's more of a friend then a client, Raveena on and off!

What is the process involved on decided what clothes to design for the artists?
It's a long process of deciding what clothes to give to the artists. One has to go for story sittings, see what the character is all about, the scene, who else is there for the scene, what the other artists are wearing, what colours they are wearing, the background and sets, and finally the personality of the artist and whether or not they are stars!

So all the shirts and t-shirts and jeans and trousers are designed by you?
No, I buy them. I simply don't have the time to sitand design each and every item of clothing. I go out to the market and pick up clothes. It's mostly co-ordination work that I do, mixing and matching of what is already available. Where is the time to design twenty outfits in two days? It's humanly not possible.


How do you deal with actors/actresses who have no clothes sense?
I avoid taking them on! But, in case, for some reason, I have to, then they have to listen to what I have to say. There are some who don't have the foggiest idea to what good fashion sense is, so if they are smart they will admit it to themselves, and then let me decide for them what's good and what isn't. And if these people with little dress sense don't have that much of faith in me then I don't work with them.

What about artists who are on the other extreme, who are hair splittingly particular about what they wear?
I like that about them. I like it when they are as sharp and as particular as I am about their clothes and their dressing. Infact, all the artists I'm working with right now are very particular from Hrithik to Amisha to Akshay to Shilpa. Hrithik is a perfectionist, he's so particular about what he's wearing and I like that because he's so hard working and it shows because he gets the best end results. Then I get really inspired to work with Shilpa because she has a fabulous body, she makes everything look good on her.

What's in fashion these days?
Whatever that's comfortable is in fashion. Whatever you are comfortable wearing is in fashion. I for one would not advice people to follow the fashion blindly. Follow the trend but wear what looks good on you, what makes you feel comfortable and confident, that's most important, that's my motto.

Yet every now and then a trend does set in. Who sets these trends?
A trend sets in when three or four designers coincidentally come out with the same cuts for the season. Or if we're talking about what sets the trend at home here in India then films influence the fashion trends most significantly. The overall sense of dressing in films has changed drastically, because the newer breed of actors and actresses are fully aware of the latest trends and happenings around the world. The budget allotted to clothes in films has sky rocketed. The emphasis these days is to look good, glamorous, glossy, and that's why producers don't mind spending that kind of money on costumes.