Of fashion, films and friends

Karan Johar talks about his clothing line, movies and SRK.

To say that director, producer, and TV show host Karan Johar, 38, has his plate full will be an understatement. But, despite multiple commitments, Johar, who has a menswear label with Delhi-based designer Varun Bahl, has decided to make 2011 the year of fashion, besides films, as he is now contemplating to open stores in Delhi and Mumbai.

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Ask him if it’s easy to juggle so much simultaneously, he says at the annual Khushii NGO benefit in the Capital, “As far as my other commitments are concerned I do have enough bandwidth to handle them all.”

Despite his love for fashion, films can never be far away from Johar’s mind, who next directorial project, Student of the Year (SOTY), has him all excited. "It’s a fresh film and I honestly feel that it's high time we started to promote fresh new talent and faces in Bollywood," he says.

But will his lucky mascot Shah Rukh Khan be missing from SOTY? “Shah Rukh’s role happens to be behind the camera, as a producer,” says Johar, who met X-Men star Hugh Jackman last month in India. "He is a great guy and a great performer. Shah Rukh and Hugh met before the press con and they really got along very well,” he says.

Prod him about rumours of Leonardo DiCaprio working with SRK in an outing, Johar says, “I know nothing about it. But, there’s never any smoke without a fire, is it? But, we did meet Leonardo and Martin Scorcese in Berlin.”