JOIN USShe has been associated with designing for as long as she remembers. Mamtaa Gupta started giving ideas for her clothes when she was just 5 or 6. Later on, her designs became popular with her friends in college and she started designing for them too.
“I have been in the world of design since 1984. My father was a garment exporter, so I used to sit at his factory and look at designers who came from different parts of the world. I don’t know if I chose it that way, or it just kept happening around me. It was a connection with design in any form. I did textile design for my graduation, and chose to consciously do designs as a product after that. Of course, there is an influence of my father’s export business, my grandfather’s retail and my uncle’s fabric business in the village when I was a child,” says Mamtaa.
She claims that she never wanted to become a designer, and in fact in her entire journey, she never called herself a designer till recently. She looks forward to the different fabrics and art of India and incorporate them in her work.
She details, “I love my country, and its different weavers, craftsmen and the art they are involved with. Every region of the country has a unique work attributed to them. I keep working with various styles and local designs. I worked with ‘chanderi’, ‘banarasi’ print and the latest to that addition is the ‘bagh’ print from Madhya Pradesh, for which I designed the fabric, got the fabric printed and then designed the garments.” Her belief that designs are for people and not for hangers. She makes sure that all her works are wearable and not just confined to the ramp. So that, when someone wears her creation they get a compliment and not the outfit. This is one of the things she keeps in mind while designing.
Her new collection is all about ‘bagh’ fabric and combined with crochet with the outfit. This collection has a twist of fusion, that makes it wearable for anyone from any part of the world. “I love to experiment with two different techniques. I have used cotton ‘bagh’ prints and crochet, which is a precisely a craft based out of France. I added ‘kantha’ in the crochet to give a more Indian touch to the outfit,” she says. The colours she chose for the collection are largely orange, pink and yellow for this season. Incorporating two extremes, and making a final output has always been her forte. Though she is comfortable working with all kind of fabrics like brocade and chanderi to name a few, her love for cotton is at its extreme.
While she works on a collection, wearability and the comfort factor, where her customers are confident of what they are wearing, are a few elements that she keeps in mind.
“My works are perfect for any independent fashionable women. I have customers from all age groups and nationalities. I create outfits that are seamless across age and region,” she says.