Name to Know nuPur Kanoi
When Nupur Kanoi sent out her Summer-Resort collection, titled ‘Ladies & Gentlemen’ on the ramp at Lakmé Fashion Week in Mumbai this March, she had both audience and buyers rapt. Her mix of feminine and masculine elements taken from everyday clothes, like her kurta-dress and her trapeze shirt, are “refreshing,” says Aparna Badlani, partner at Mumbaibased store Atosa. “I love her work. She mixes structure and Indian-ness with ease, and I knew this collection would sell very well.”
Based in Kolkata, Kanoi has been in the business since 2006, and began showing on the ramp barely a year ago. What sets her apart from other designers of her vintage is the maturity of her creativity and attention to detail. A graduate of NIFT, Kolkata (2002), Kanoi has her time as a stylist at a magazine in Mumbai and two years with Anamika Khanna to thank for that. “Starting my career with styling and then moving to design changed my perception towards my label,” she says.
From her Summer 2013 range, standouts include the cleverly conjoined ganji-lungi maxi (the ubiquitous uniform of Kolkata’s masses of working men), the Pathan suit feminised via a swallow-tail at the back, and a safari suit made glam with a graphic-floral pattern. Her style, notably, is the opposite of the so-called Bengal School of design: A fairly common denominator of the city’s designers, it celebrates Kolkata’s fusty opulence and dexterity with embroideries and prints. Instead, Kanoi went with a singularly striking, matte copper lace, and used it to arresting effect, creating shimmering surfaces and textures. “Shirts and kurta versions in olive and off-white with copper detailing are some of my favourites,” she says. Ours, too.