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I had a lot of Catholic influence around me
Two time National Award-winning costume designer, Ana Singh talks about her new art collection
When costume designer Ana Singh was working on her Christian art collection, little did she know that one day it would be an entire line of artefacts that would be exhibited in the city. Ana, who has experimented with Christian art in clothes and jewellery for years, hadn’t worked with the format in sculptures, furniture and art pieces. “I was doing my own thing and one evening, I met Sussanne Khan, and showed my work to her. She urged me to do a whole line and I thought it was a great idea. So, my collection had to be curated by Sussanne,” says Ana.
The designer, who has designed costumes for several films and has been working with clothes and jewellery since 1998, is now showcasing her latest collection. Curated by interior designer Sussanne, the artefacts are touted to be “one of a kind” and they range from designer jackets to show pieces to huge designer beds and interior design pieces — all being luxurious vintage objects. The motifs, figurines, busts and jewellery that Ana brings to connoisseurs, is a wide range of interpretations of bejewelled Christian art in expressive Byzantine/ Venetian/ Italian-influenced vintage art pieces.
Talking about the collection, she says, “The work is heavily inspired by the Vatican and the Pope, and we have tried to give it a modern twist. If anyone were to buy a jacket, they can later remove that textile art, and keep it as a separate art piece as well, or they can just have a jacket as a collector’s item in their wardrobe.”
When asked what inspired her to come up with such a collection, Ana says, it’s something that comes “naturally to me”, adding, “I was born on Christmas and Christ has always had a huge influence in my life.
In 2008, my collection of shirts and jackets inspired by Christian art — a 10,000 piece show, was a total sellout,” (laughs). A gold medallist from the JJ School of Art, Ana initially did paintings in college, and when she joined the film industry, her first film was Maine Pyar Kiya (1989).
The designer, who’s currently working on her 1101th film as costume designer and holds the Guinness Book record for 990 films, says, “I had a lot of Catholic influence around me when I was growing up. These works are an extension of my persona.”
