Apparel April 2019 Apparel May 2019 issue | Page 92

DESIGNER SPOTLIGHT
CREATING A MELTING
POT OF FASHION
Bindu Gopal Rao engages in a conversation with Sangita Sinh Kathiwada,
Founder of Mélange, a fashion house in Mumbai which recently celebrated its
silver jubilee.
A qualified graphic designer who further
studied jewellery designing, interior decoration,
photography and silk screen printing, Sangita
Sinh Kathiwada’s achievements make for a rather
overcrowded cap with many feathers. In 1992,
Sangita’s inherent sartorial acumen and design
education led to the creation of Mélange, the
premier fashion house of India, which opened its
doors in a 100-year-old wine cellar in Mumbai. At
a time when sustainability was not the watchword
du jour yet, Mélange enjoyed meteoric success
by taking an environmentally conscious approach
to fashion with unstructured garments that sat
proudly amidst a sophisticated backdrop.
Under Sangita’s critical eye, Mélange became
the launch pad for many notable names of the
current crop of top couturiers including Savio
86
I APPAREL I
May 2019
Jon, Wendell Rodricks, Ramesh Nair, Narendra
Kumar, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Priyadarshini
Rao, Sanjay Garg, Hidden Harmony, Priti Paul,
Sabina Singh, Anuradha Vakil, Anavilla Mishra,
Sunita Shankar, Aneeth Arora, Aki Narula,
among many others. When the country started
recognising an alternative way of buying fashion,
Sangita Kathiwada had the desire to support
the backbone of the industry which is the crafts,
looms and hand weaves. This led her to establish
The Morarka Cultural Centre in 1995 at the
prestigious National Centre for Performing Arts
(NCPA). The Morarka Cultural Centre then went
on to be the backbone of Sangita’s passion
projects by propelling weavers and artisans at
the grass-roots level, enabling them to be part of
a larger fashion movement. She also worked on