Tamboowala’s son wants you to buy his fashion

Wearing a middle-class childhood proudly on his sleeve, designer Karan Torani looks to ’90s wedding videos and trends for a festive collection campaign that may be awkward but endearingly real

Not every rebel wears black. Some, like Karan Torani, turn up in a safed kurta-pyjama. At times, a printed shawl or waistcoat takes centre-stage for the camera lens. Like it does when he gives a video interview for his new festive collection titled, Sindhi Tent House (STH). The 29-year-old designer sits with his legs crossed, feet bare and says to his social media audience: “I always feel like us middle-class individuals never think or feel that our stories are special enough to be celebrated. We don’t celebrate our legacy, our families”.

The clothes, mood, a handpicked cast of Lillete Dubey, Richa Chadha, Denzil Smith, Natasha Rastogi and Vijay Varma, digital creators like Kusha Kapila and the models who feature in STH’s digital campaign are united by the belief that fashion can be at odds with the recent tropes of luxury. It is about the joy of being the outsider, the fun of maximalism—both socially and artistic. “Culturally we are not a minimalist country, we are obsessed with glamour, colour and textures and that’s been a big learning.” 

And so, Torani rejects cookie-cutter polish and the rote focus on posh destinations and commerce-led trousseau wear. He mines the past instead, turning to middle-class storytelling and icons from ’90s blockbusters devoured on cable TV. 

Turning to the relationship he shares with his father, Kamal, makes this personal. “I didn’t grow up with a rich daddy. I always thought he was a sort of a jadugar. He ran a wedding tamboowala business in South Delhi and created beautiful sets out of thin air,” says Torani about his father, who now oversees the brand’s finances. The campaign also features the litany of staff Kamal would’ve worked with: the live orchestra, caterers and mithaiwalas. “Richa [Chadha] asked me who is playing the bride and groom [in the campaign]. No one, I said. Before COVID, an Indian wedding guest-list had at least 500 guests, yet most designers would woo only the bride and groom in their campaigns,” he argues. 

And so, Chadha isn’t the bride but a character who pays tribute to Madhuri Dixit, the ’90s film icon. “As a gay boy who didn’t quite know how to define his sexuality, Madhuri Dixit was an inspiration,” Torani laughs. And because he has lived the decade, he believes he owns it. He is not about to romanticise this collection either. He knows ’90s fashion was indistinguishable but he values it for its inclusive “mix-and-match approach”. 

This quality is perhaps best represented in the aubergine and leaf green combination (alluding to Dixit’s HAHK saree and lehenga set), the motif of the baraat ghodi and Kohinoor tent. The shiny makeup and big, tousled hair [70 artistes worked on the look] in the campaign is deliberate. “Richa thought the shots looked straight out of her childhood memories. On shoot, if a table wobbled, we didn’t fix it. The ’90s wedding videos were big on anomalies,” he says of the campaign that was shot over two days in a tent set up in Delhi. “Sometimes, I did wonder, zyada toh nahin ho gaya? But I am owning up to who I am, the son of a tamboowala.”    

Richa Chadha 
Actress Richa Chadha plays Satyawati Khatri. “This character is inspired by my maasi [maternal aunt]. Sattu is high on life, mad about fashion,” says Karan Torani. The outfit is a love song of sorts to Madhuri Dixit in Hum Aapke Hain Koun. “The white-and-green lehenga set was the hottest colour combination of the season and imitations sold like hot cakes.”

Vijay Varma
Torani’s new festive campaign features actor Vijay Varma playing the role of the designer’s father Kamal aka Bittoo, who worked as a wedding tamboowala in South Delhi in the ’90s

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