Young designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee is feeling a little torn apart, juggling fashion shows in Malaysia, India and the US and working on the sets of the film 'Black'.
"I feel like my head is here, the legs are there and the body is somewhere else," Mukherjee said as he lounged on a sofa at New Delhi's The Grand Hotel, venue of the fifth Indian fashion week.
The 20-something designer shot to fame a couple of years ago at the fashion week when he showed a brilliantly eclectic collection - fusing the street aesthetics of sex workers in West Bengal with the crimson colour palette and kantha embroidery of the region.
He was then invited to dress Amitabh Bachchan, Rani Mukherjee and the rest of the cast of ace Bollywood director Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 'Black'.
"It is outrageously demanding because Sanjay looks at every detail - from nail polish to clothes," said Mukherjee, whose collection at the fashion week this year is called 'The Frog Princess'.
"And working with Bachchan is just sublime. It's a fabulous experience."
Next on line is a trip to the fashion week in Miami, a trip Mukherjee confessed he was slightly intimidated about.
"This is my first trip to the US and I'm feeling a little scared. I hope everything works out just fine," said the soft-spoken designer who put Kolkata firmly on the fashion map.
{{/usCountry}}"This is my first trip to the US and I'm feeling a little scared. I hope everything works out just fine," said the soft-spoken designer who put Kolkata firmly on the fashion map.
{{/usCountry}}There is a definitive buzz about his new collection, which depicts "the woman who is always neglected".
"I wanted to show that these women too have their own free spirit, that wonderful sense of individuality. They are not made up at all."
Coupling embroidery, with hand-woven ragged bits of silk, interlacing velvet and cotton and using Kolhapuri leather shoes with glitzy zari designs to be worn with socks - Mukherjee has created a sense of ethereal disjoint for the collection.
He started planning the collection after his sister, who suffered from an eating disorder, fainted. "She was unhappy about her body and I thought I shall make clothes for people who are not perfect, who are not 'dolled up'."
His sister, Payal, and his assistants even modelled for the collection and the photo shoot. "I didn't want models, I wanted non-professionals, to give it the sense of stark attitude."