Dressing up Hollywood

After dressing up international stars such as Rihanna, Mischa Barton, Kimberly Stewart, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, Kanika Saluja is all set to launch her second brand Anaikka in India.

She says, “I moved to Mumbai after I got married. I realised there is a huge gap in the industry. There is nothing for the contemporary Indian women. There is a huge middle-class customer base in the country which is not tapped. My second label is Anaikka, and we are using fabrics from Italy, silk from Korea and Indian cottons. I want to create something like Marc Jacobs, but at Zara prices.”

But with great dreams and ambitions, does Kanika understand the Indian woman? She replies affirmatively, “The Indian woman has a voluptous body. I think they should wear clothes that enhance their curves. Thus my collection is bra-friendly. Also, there is not much exposure of the mid-riff. However India is also a country with a growing upper-middle class which will soon become rich. They need to look stylish and chic.”  Kanika also stresses on multiplicity of clothes believing that one dress should be worn at least three times in different ways.

Born in India, Kanika had early childhood experience with textiles and spent much of her time at her mother’s beading factories in New Delhi and nearby Bareilly, where she would sit with skilled craftsmen and watch as they delicately adorned fabrics for Oleg Cassini gowns and produced luxurious clothing for Roberto Cavalli, Adriana Papell among other highly respected private label brands. She recalls, “After graduating from the Philadelphia College of textile design and engineering I moved to New York to help my brother (Arjun Saluja) launch his line ‘Rishta’ of avant-garde womenswear which quickly became popular on the New York Fashion scene.”

Leveraging her father’s factory capabilities, she developed a collection of embellished t-shirts which were quickly picked up by Barney’s, Henry Bendel, Nordstrom and numerous specialty stores. In 2003, Kanika’s collection was launched under the name ‘Nikka New York’ label, which set the ball rolling for the creation of a top-notch design, production and marketing team. Since then she has evolved into a lifestyle designer and stylist.