Shivan Bhatiya and Narresh Kukreja who have made swimsuits aspirational with their cool and art-based label Shivan & Narresh, have now diversified into stationery, in collaboration with myPAPERCLIP, a homegrown stationery brand. We chat with Narresh on what this new vertical spells, with Shivan joining in, in between his lunch.
This is just perfect for all those who want to collect stationery items...
Narresh: Agreed. I think anybody who has a little bit of a creative bent, they feel more powerful when the stationery in their hand allows them to be creative. It’s not always drawing but it can simply be about writing. It literally feels like power in your hands when you hold a notebook that inspires you to write. When I hold an inspirational diary in my hand which inspires me to write, draw or sketch, I know what it means to me as a creative person. And there are so many creative souls out there who would probably feel the same way about owning a creative piece of stationery.
They make for great gifts too...
Narresh: It is... for corporate gifting and personal gifts. We have Rakhi coming up and the whole festive calendar is going to start unravelling, starting August. We felt it was the right time of the year to release this. We have some very beautiful diaries and notepads, wallets for men and tablet and iPad sleeves. (In terms of design), it was bringing the prints back home. All of these are some of our iconic signature prints and they started their life on paper when we started to sketch and paint them years ago, and, it really felt great that we were now bringing them back on paper... it was emotional for us.
Izo Juno and Palmera are inspired from our holiday to Japan. Then we have Iconomash and Morning Calm. Iconomash for us is an abstract representation of the iconograms, the five animals that represent the brand... beach, safari, ski, cruise... all of these lifestyles are represented through the contemporary print of Iconomash. They are all hand-painted on canvas.
When you diversify, how do you tweak the aesthetics?
Narresh: It is very different from designing a garment. I think some parts of it remain similar and some very different. Parts which are similar are that both the things need to be inspirational, inspire you to be the best version of yourself that day. The functionality, however, is very different. What an outfit does for you when you enter a room full of people and to turn heads... what a diary does for you is a relationship between you and your diary. The scale and the graphic quality of it changes. To retain the impact and the graphic quality, the prints will of course have to be remodelled and resized and replayed with the original elements for them to come together.
This is a great entry into the brand too...
Narresh: I couldn’t agree with you more. I really feel art is such a backbone of our brand because it inspires us to create these prints that inspire people to consume. A lot of the demographics which are beyond our business pyramid of customers, it becomes a great way to enter our universe and connect with the brand and feel empowered. Feeling powerful is such a democratic thing.
Journaling picked up massively during the pandemic...
Narresh: I used to be this person who used to be a good listener but not a good reader or writer, but I completely turned around during Covid. The diary reflects your personal growth. For Shivan, the diary had a very different use. He uses his diaries to sketch all the time.
Did this endeavour take you back to your childhood days?
Narresh: It did! The joy of going to school in the first few months (lay) in opening new textbooks, writing your name... it was magical. The little joys of going to school every day. I think that part hasn’t left us. It needs to be ignited by the right design to connect to your childhood.
What are you obsessed with?
Narresh: I used to have this pencil box with buttons and you would press the buttons and different sections would open up. It used to be my prized possession for years! (Laughs) It was such a joy, that pencil box.
Shivan: I think I am a hoarder, so hoarding pencils, sketchpens and drawing books. I had so many of them and I would fill them up half and find a new one. Erasers have always attracted me and over time, I have perfected my craft so much that I don’t use an eraser, but I still have hoards of them.
Shivan, do you ever revisit your old designs and want to do something with them?
Shivan: Ninety nine per cent of the time, I don’t go back to my old design, but at the minute, I am doing a major spring cleaning and I am thinking maybe I should bring this back. What you draw back in the day, some of the things become classic.... There’s thousands of pages of sketches. So, stationery has become an important aspect at the minute.
How is the Goa store doing?
Narresh: It’s doing very well. That store ends up becoming a meeting point for all our customers because everybody goes to Goa! (Laughs)
