Designer Arpita Mehta’s personal style might exude understated elegance but her newly opened 850-sq ft Delhi store at DLF Emporio is a riot of colours. From an olive sofa set with yellow and tangerine cushions, coral carpets custom made from Jaipur, and thick medallion curtains that separate the dressing room from the seating area to a pastel-pink sofa bench — the entire look is eye-catching enough for visitors to stop by.
“Delhi, to me, is synonymous with celebration — it’s like a big party. The atmosphere here is perpetually jubilant. Unlike cities like Mumbai, where people tend to dress casually or prefer an understated look, in Delhi, people are always dressed to the nines,” Mehta says, adding that most of her memories of this city revolve around attending weddings, special occasions, or Diwali parties. And Delhi has always been on her mind.
Mehta, a Mumbai-born designer of Gujarati origin, has done numerous pop-ups and exhibitions in the city. “Being the capital, it is an arts and culture hub. It is strategically placed close to Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh markets. It is also a formal city compared to Mumbai and shoppers here love variety,” the 32-year-old tells TMS. The pandemic delayed the opening of her Delhi store for four years; interior designer Ravi Vazirani, who designed her Mumbai flagship store, has designed the Delhi store, too.
A closet of memories
The store is flanked by prêt and couture collections of women’s wear. (The designer will drop her new spring-summer collection by mid-April). As we go through them, a bridal gold mirror-work lehenga with a tulle dupatta catches our eye. It is almost a replica of Arpita’s own ensemble; the one she wore in 2022 at her wedding with designer Kunal Rawal. In India, where brides treasure their lehengas as keepsakes of their distinct love story, why would she want to recreate it for others? “People so loved my wedding lehenga that they wanted it for themselves! So, we kept a version of the same piece in the store, although there are tiny details in my lehenga that distinguishes it from the one in the store,” she says with a laugh.
Mirror work has been the core expertise of Mehta since the brand’s inception in 2007. To mark her 10 years in the fashion industry, the designer even launched a coffee table book, one that we found at the store, titled The Mirror. It captures the designer’s life and her journey of dressing celebrities such as Madhuri Dixit, Sonam Kapoor, Malaika Arora, Ananya Panday and Suhana Khan, among many other muses dressed in her gold mirror-work jackets, tiered sari sets, ruffle tops, retro bralettes paired with pants and jackets and more.
Her signature style
“As a child, I used to dress up in traditional Gujarati mirror-work lehengas. My mother used to buy them from Jamnagar and Ahmedabad for me and my sister. Not surprisingly it became my signature embroidery style.” It is best manifested in her 2019 spring summer edit, ‘Folklore’, also available at the store featuring rows of embroidered patterns around circular mirrors. “It’s one of my most favourite campaigns. We met the women from the Ahir tribe, who use thread-work around mirrors to create vibrant maximalist designs. The collection was shot in the Rann of Kutch, where we worked 8-10 hours at a stretch in the scorching 44-degrees Celsius March heat.” The result: stunning pieces like tiered ruffle saris, ghaghras, corset tops and cape sets in electrifying shades of blue, parrot green and acid pink."
Mirrors are not the only element plucked from her subconscious. Over the years, suede fringes and cowrie shells, too, have entered her creations. “Our home in Juhu was just two minutes from the beach. My father used to go to the beach at 5.30 am everyday and take me and my sister along. It was like, ‘you have to wake up and show up!’ We used to hoard seashells like people do for a stamp collection. Perhaps the seashells became part of my subliminal thoughts. That’s how ideas translate into one’s work of art I guess,” she says.