Vivek Karunakaran’s strong will and fine aesthetics will make him a force to reckon with in fashion as the first-timer at WIFW 2014 is ready to take on autumn-winter with “The Tribe”

By Asmita Aggarwal

For Trivandrum-born Vivek Karunkaran fashion wasn’t something that boys from middle-class, academic families indulged in or even should care about, with an engineer father and a mom, who considered it “inappropriate”. But he stuck on to his beliefs and fought to apply to NIFT Chennai, got in with much convincing that being a doctor didn’t interest him.

VK mood shot AW 14

That wasn’t the happy ending of this story as it is a long way to the top if you want to rock ‘n’ roll. Campus placements got him a lucrative opportunity to work with Camiceria, an export house which manufactured and designed for Armani to Kenzo. Six years of travelling exposed him to a world where design had no boundaries, and from a junior designer he was promoted to creative head in a year. “I applied to Domus Academy, Milan to further study, but I got an opportunity to do a show, it was a tough choice and I was torn between going and staying back. I chose the latter. I presented my show ‘Dark Romance’ with my label in 2007 and it was received with a thundering applause,” says Vivek.