From recreating the Madras checks, to paying homage to his Tamil roots through spiritual texts “Thirukkural”, Vivek Karunakaran has come full circle at the FDCI India Men’s Weekend at Diggi Palace, Jaipur.
By Asmita Aggarwal
His earliest memory of fashion is an eight-year-old sitting on his mom’s feet, pleating her South silk saris, he would hand iron to smoothen the crease. He credits his innate sense of creativity to her. What changed the course of his life was Aishwarya Rai (Ms World) and Sushmita Sen (Ms Universe) winning coveted crowns in the dawn of fashion-year 1994.
His father was an engineer in the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), he remembers, his parents waking up at 6 am, getting ready to leave for work, making his food for the entire day, how much they worked hard!
His journey began in 1999, when from Thiruvananthapuram, he decided to move to Chennai, to study fashion design from NIFT. His label Vivek Karunakaran is now almost 18 years old. It was a challenge coming from a middle-class family, his parents wanted him to be an engineer, but he calls his life’s trek, “extremely humbling”. As providence would have it, when he was set to leave for his masters in Milan, he got selected for India Fashion Week, two weeks before for the GenNext showcasing in 2007.
Coming from a bootstrapped business, having no business acumen, taking wrong turns all the time but learning crucial lessons from them, has been the “biggest gift” for Vivek who changed his brand name from Viaa to VK.
He counts the seven-and-a-half years he spent at an export house Cammacaria, which worked with European labels like Armani to Diesel and Kenzo, as that’s where he learnt “deep experimentation. How design is not a piece of art, but retail,” he adds, learning the intricacies of menswear despite his line for NIFT being innately womenswear.
Post-Covid he shifted gears and decided to focus on dressing men, “operationally better” he confirms. His USP would be fit, detailing and finish–what can look demure on a rack, can come alive when you know how to wear/style it. “I today feel rooted to where I belong, whether it is fabrics or heritage,” he adds.
Having worked with Kancheepuram silks to Balrampur cotton, this year he has used Tamil script in various ingenious ways in garments. His inspiration is Tirukkural (Tamil language text on morality consisting of 1,330 short couplets, or kurals, of seven words each. It is divided into three books with spiritual teachings on virtue, wealth, love, humility). He converted it into a running script for his collection showcased at Diggi Palace, Jaipur at the FDCIXChivas India Men’s Weekend.
From checks, shackets, embroidery on elbow sleeves of bombers, the whole approach is to break free from the cookie cutter method. Layering to pleated palazzos, wrap pants, chanderi kurtas with bombers give his line “Edum” or “space from where you belong”, a third dimension, also in some ways it is a tribute to Chennai.
This teamed up with jasmine flowers, heritage elements, silk taffeta to Egyptian cotton, textures used innovatively, is what he believes is a change from what men wear. Tucking, block prints, Madras checks are not bought and used literally (buy and sew) but created using textures, by weaving, silk tussars, also window pane checks.
Vivek has had many firsts, his project “Flawsome”, that channelled the ideology of one product at one time, unisex, anyone could wear it, simple shirt in Egyptian cotton and jersey sleeves did extremely well. “Bundi is passe, a shacket (you can wear with anything—slim pants to capris and even palazzos) is cool, especially our play of prints is interesting,” he affirms.
Chennai, he says shaped the person he is today, it is the “silent force” that helped him reach this far, the unknown faces, people, who came into his life, and his wife Shreya’s gave him the impetus he required. “Shreya and I always believe we came from nowhere but found home here-in Chennai,” he concludes.