Payal Pratap Singh had had a harrowing time with her phone on the day this chat was scheduled. When the Zoom video came alive on our screens, there was only pristine charm though. From Payal’s pleasant disposition to the splash of ivory in the background. Mellow and serene, much like her autumn-winter line View with a Room, showcased at FDCI x Lakme Fashion Week. Layers, checks, stripes, handloom wool, cross-stitch, sequin detailing on maxi dresses, wrap dresses, jackets, in hues like, plum, deep purple, navy and ruby was Payal’s romantic canvas. Elegant and charming. The designer spoke to The Telegraph ahead of her showing, on brand Payal Pratap turning a decade old and what’s in store for the future.
Congratulations on the label Payal Pratap turning a decade old. How has the journey been? Does it seem like it all started just the other day?
It does. There have been so many seasons and years that have flown past me, but I always look at it in a positive way, meaning there was something to learn and develop every year and something to be excited about and look forward to every year. I have enjoyed every bit of it actually.
What have been the biggest learnings?
For me personally, it is to carry on and move on and push yourself. There could be ups and downs in a season or highs and lows for everyone but one just needs to lift themselves up and move on and look forward to another brighter day. That’s what keeps you going and going forward. The humanity from the past year has learnt to adapt and how to keep their hopes high. I think it is a lot of hard work as well. You need to be consistent in whatever you do. One needs to prioritise one’s time, whether it is personal life or work life. There has to be a balance and one needs to be in a happy space to be able to enjoy what you do.
I am very clear with my priorities. There has always been a good balance between my personal life and my professional life. I have reaped the benefits. I have always been in a good phase, physically and mentally. So, I think it’s all about how holistically we look at life and I think we will need to take in all the goodness around us. We all need to work at it and we don’t need to take life so seriously. We need to enjoy life as well.
Payal Pratap Singh in a green outfit
You have worked with Rajesh Pratap Singh, noted designer and your husband, extensively, till you launched your own label. What have been your learnings from him?
My biggest learning from Rajesh as a designer is that he has never compromised. He never compromises on quality or his design aesthetics. You need to believe and stick to what you do. You need to understand your strength. He never makes clothes to make the market happy. He is very disciplined about it.
What are the pros and cons of being a designing couple?
When we look back at the years we have been together, we have worked for many years together. As time has passed, we have grown up together and the brand has grown and then I have grown and created my own brand 10 years back. I feel this has been an evolution, a growth for all of us. It is nice to have a design partner who understands you. He comes to me for advice and I go to him. We were each other’s sounding boards. We understand each other’s brand really well and everything that goes into it. There is so much sweat that goes into it. It’s not all about glamour. We also have our problems, whether it is running a factory, quality, timelines or deliveries or client orders.
How have your own aesthetics evolved over the years?
When I started my brand and moved out of Rajesh’s brand, I wanted to follow my path. Initially, my working years were with an export company. I worked in a womenswear company, which was for the French, Italian and US markets. I worked there for five-six years before I joined Rajesh. I had a good enough experience in terms of marketing, merchandising. I did get that expertise into Rajesh’s business in those years, but somewhere down the line I felt I was missing out on something where I started my journey from, which was design.
Rajesh was fully supportive. He said just follow your heart and do whatever you want to do. Ultimately, we’ll all have to be happy in our lives. That’s how I gave birth to my own brand Payal Pratap.
I felt my thing was a bit more feminine. It was all about colour and purity, pretty flowers, freshness, lightness. It was all about making the woman feel good and beautiful inside out.
I do love a lot of colour, but right now for this launch (Payal Pratap’s spring-summer line Verdant Meadows), I have done a lot of neutral colours. This time I wanted to work with a lot of small, minimal flowers and twigs. I didn’t want to have it extensively embellished. It was all about restrained design. I just wanted it to have a bit of detail which is just enough. I think we have all come out of this year where I didn’t want anything to look very heavy. It is like a new beginning for all of us.
Though very different labels, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Payal Pratap, somewhere simplicity unites the two...
Simplicity yes. My design aesthetic is also simple, but at the same time, it also depends on what I am working on. The FDCI x Lakme Fashion Week collection has a lot of colour, jewelled tones, a lot of rich embellishments, but again, it is simple in its own way. There is a lot of work that has gone into it. It looks simple but it is not simple.
Is this your first digital showing?
Yes, this is the first time I have done this. We are learning to embrace it and work around it and as a designer we have to evolve and find new ways of evolving, showing, selling, of reaching out to the consumer, to the world. There are a lot of pros to it. I have done it for the first time this season and I feel, it reaches out to a wider audience who have probably wanted to see your show but you couldn’t accommodate people who were out of town or your buyers worldwide. There is no front row as such. (In physical shows) we had to hoard passes till the last minute and decide who you want to give it to. There’s always a fight about the front-row seat. (Here), we are all on a equal platform. I would say the world is on an equal platform at the moment. Also, you can reach out to your own audience in a way that it instantly converts to sales and orders. This is like a great marketing way forward for any fashion brand. In fact, everyone is using it in a big way. We are pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone. The medium is different. It feels different, but I think we are learning. I learnt a lot this time. I was feeling quite lost in the beginning, but now I am feeling that one can do so much more. You don’t have to hold back.
What can you tell us about the showing?
My collection is called View with a Room. It came along the way during lockdown days and I kept wondering what we are going to do next time. One didn’t know. There was so much anticipation around it. This whole year has been about introspection and internalising, our spaces inside out, about us being confined in a space. So for me, it was really going back to my memory box. My memory of my journey through the years, what I love the most, digging from my past collections, seeing what kind of prints and embellishments I want to do, colours, what I love the most... it’s really a mix of a lot of colour, embroidery techniques, a lot of hand-held machine. It is in between a space of what is going to happen next and at the same time, you live with hope.... For me, this collection was based on the space we were in and time we spent this past year.
Though we cannot plan anything as taught by the pandemic, but if we ask you about the next 10 years for the brand...
I’ll keep going and I am looking forward to the next collections. For humanity, it is important to be in a good mental health space, to be able to do whatever you are able to do positively, look at the future in a brighter way and things will fall in place. Be grateful for all the time we had in the lockdown as well. People were creative during the lockdown. We gave ourselves a lot of time. I think we gave ourselves a lot of time to heal and think.
