Manish Arora gets candid on his love for Paris, bling, pets and more

India’s best-known designer in Paris gets into confession mode: Talks one by one about everything (and everyone) he loves!

It’s a nippy Wednesday noon and I am standing outside designer Manish Arora’s store in Delhi’s hip Dhan Mill Compound, gazing at his signature heart motifs on the store front. His white-and-gold ambassador is parked beside me, glistening in the winter sun. It’s gleaming inside as well: the seats are upholstered in quirky bright glittery motifs and there’s a giant heart on the driver’s seat.

Manish Arora’s unabashed love for bold, vibrant hues percolates not just his design but also his personality, belongings and surroundings(Rohit Chawla)

Manish first visited Paris on the invitation of a friend (Rohit Chawla)

Manish first visited Paris on the invitation of a friend after he made his first India Fashion Week collection, sharing a tiny apartment with three people, and sleeping on a mattress beneath the dining table.

“Every morning I go to office like it’s my last day on this planet, or it is the biggest party in town!”

Catherine became a great friend, and now makes all the jewellery for his collections. No wonder: it was she who tried to break him into the Paris fashion scene by getting him to meet Sarah Andelman, the owner of Colette, the most iconic shop in France.

Manish attributes his love for bling to his Punjabi roots and love for glam Hindi movies of the ’80s (Rohit Chawla)

Combine his Punjabi roots with a childhood spent in India’s Tinseltown, Mumbai, and it’s easy to decode Manish’s love for bling. He was so obsessed with Bollywood that he collected all the film magazines of the 1980s and still has hundreds of copies stored at his mother’s place in Mumbai.

“Human beings are not supposed to be monogamous, right? There aren’t many people who are happy being monogamous”

As an only child, friends have always been important to Manish. When he moved to Delhi at 17 to study at NIFT, having his life revolve around his friends was a natural progression.

“I love myself so much that I want to come across like that to myself. I don’t dress for others!”

His style philosophy is simple: “I love myself so much that I want to come across like that to myself. I don’t dress for others,” he says. Clothes are his catnip and he will buy anything he likes irrespective of prices and brands.

The only car Manish can recognise and therefore loves is the now-no-longer-produced Ambassador (Rohit Chawla)

You can’t miss the rings on Manish’s fingers (at least one of which is heart-shaped), and his statement glasses. Accessories turn him on, so since he can’t find enough quirky trimmings in the markets, he manufactures them himself.

“They [my family] should know that if I’m not married at age 46, there must be something!”

So the good old Amby makes Manish’s engine run – the one parked outside his store now is his third. “I love my Ambassador,” declares Manish. “It’s a beautiful design, it’s comfortable and you feel very safe in it. You need something like a tank on Delhi roads and this is just that!”

“I find men who know more than me very attractive. It is a very good turn on”

The two are still friends, because Manish believes one can have one relationship, but can still love many. “Human beings are not supposed to be monogamous, right? And we are not,” he says. “We are just pretending to be, or we are suffering monogamy. There aren’t many people who are happy being monogamous.”