Richaa Goenka’s creations embody the essence of the inherent simplicity tied closely to the soul of her favourite city—Chennai—where her eponymous label is based.
Rooted in her admiration for its unpretentious and straightforward people, her spring edit comprises shirts, shirt dresses, coord-sets and pantsuits that follow a streamlined stylistic course with clean cuts and simple forms.
Made from cotton and denim, the collection features statement-making floral, butterfly, and bird motifs. While some of the shirts are simple with hints of embellishment making them appropriate for business wear, others are dressier with sequins or beads.
“I don’t like having too many elements in a garment. It ends up looking cluttered. Instead, I focus on a single stand-out design so that it can be styled in different ways,” says Goenka. She sahre how. “Wear one of our shirts with a contracting inner or a stripped camisole leaving all the buttons open. The shirt dresses from the line will look cool with shorts, a short skirt or jeans; you can do the popular ‘half-tuck’ style or wear one of our shirts with a corset belt,” she says.
Most of the garments, especially the shirts, bombers, dresses and jackets feature snap or shirt buttons, and zippers. “We’ve used tapes and elastics to give a design variation. Collars have been kept simple; there are shirt and bind collars, but the big experimentation is in terms of sleeves, which include pleats, ruffles, layers, oversized and flared styles,” says the designer, who believes every collection they launch is a result of the hard work put in by every specialist in her team—the craftsmen, operators, pattern creators, designers, and brand managers.
For somebody who ventured into the fashion industry in 1996, her decades-long career has taken her around the globe, thanks to all the fashion shows. Even though she has dressed actors Dino Morea, John Abraham and Lara Dutta, in addition to celebrities Adnan Sami, Deepti Bhatnagar and Sameera Reddy, she values the process of creating garments for just about anybody.
“It’s through dressing my clients that I seek feedback to understand what more I can do. The joy and satisfaction I see on people’s faces when they’re happy with their outfits is the most fulfilling part of my job,” says Goenka.