'Stick to your own creativity'

Since childhood, designer Gaurav Katta was surrounded by fabrics and textiles as his family was into the textile business. Though he initially wanted to become an engineer, he was always inclined towards designing clothes and finally started his own clothing line for both men and women in 2008.

His new collection — ‘Rani Bagh’— is all about the elements of a garden. His collection constitutes a lot of components of nature like birds, animals and flowers.

“I have chosen neutral colours for this collection and have used a natural combination of colours that are inspired by the birds and flowers in nature. The primary colours that I have used are steel blue, rusty aqua, peach and beige,” says Gaurav.

He mainly works with georgette, different types of nets, cotton and chiffons while working on the womenswear whereas for menswear he mostly uses handwoven fabrics like khadi and silks among others.

“I generally prefer handwork and this can be seen in all my collection. Hand embroidered fabrics are what I am passionate about and I use pastel hues in all my collection,” adds Gaurav.

‘Zardosi’, ‘dori’, anchor and sequences are some of the embroideries that he extensively works with. Gaurav will be showcasing his latest collection at the upcoming ‘Mysore Fashion Week’ and this will be his first time at the fashion show. He wanted to showcase nature and its beautiful avatars to people and he is doing it best through this garments.

Ask him  what makes his creations stand out and his quick response is ‘the colour combinations and the finishing of the embroidery’. “Though I have participated in other fashion shows, this will be my first display at Mysore. I am pretty excited about it and hoping to get a good response  and get better exposure,” says Gaurav.

As a piece of advice to young designers, he says the most important thing is honesty and being genuine to one's work. “Create your own designs. It is alright to get ideas from others but copying someone else’s work is not encouraging. Stick to your own creativity,” says Gaurav.