<p>Designer Payal Khandwala, who launched her self-titled fashion label in 2012, will open her first store on Thursday, October 16. The 1,600 square foot place in Colaba’s art gallery-filled Grants Building is split into a store and a studio where Khandwala and her team will work and where she will paint. While she’s now more famous as a fashion designer who makes voluminous clothes in bold colours, forty-year-old Khandwala began her career as an artist. We interviewed the designer over email about her transition from art to fashion, her new store and how she likes to wear a sari and white shirt. Edited excerpts:</p><p><strong>Why did you move from art to fashion?</strong><br>I think the seeds had been sown a long time ago. My mum used to sew my clothes and my grandmother hers, plus both painted very well but were never trained in either. Also, I studied fashion at SNDT (University) many years ago, before I jumped ship to art with a Bachelor in Fine Arts and Illustration from the Parsons School for Design, New York. And then just overnight an opportunity arose to show at Lakme Fashion Week in 2012. I agreed and it grew from there!</p><p><strong>There are a lot of rich colours in your collection but no prints. Will we see something new at the store?</strong><br>Yes, we’ve worked on and developed prints, a first for the label. We kept them very simple, geometric and dramatic – an extension of the house aesthetic and easy to team with our signature separates. We also have a line of limited edition clothes, our classic shapes but in rich hand-woven silks and brocades, which we will stock only at the store.</p><p><strong>Your collection stands out for comfortable silhouettes and ethnic fabrics and design. Is this your personal style?</strong><br>Yes. It all started because I could never quite find the right combination of things I wanted in clothing – comfort, colour, proportions, drama. Something was always missing. Now I’m more mindful of what I design, keeping in mind what other women want – different sizes and shapes within our design DNA. I love the dichotomy in things so I find fabrics that we attribute to India work perfectly in western silhouettes.</p><p><strong>How have you designed your store?</strong><br>The store also houses our studio and an area where I will paint, so in time my art work will most likely spill into the space. In addition to this, I’m working on a mural that will alter and grow as time goes by. I designed the store space to be the opposite of the studio space, to echo that push and pull that I hope the clothing communicates, the masculine structured shapes with the lush jewel tones, the drapes and pleats. And because I designed the space and the clothes I think there’s a synergy between both.</p><p><strong>What’s your favourite contemporary method of wearing a sari?</strong><br>I don’t like messing with the sari too much; I think it’s best in its original form. I like it belted sometimes and pleated flat and ironed for more structure if I’m in that sort of a mood. Otherwise just a beautiful men’s shirt in white or in any colour (worn as a blouse) can do the trick!</p>