Retro Active

It’s a look that is part exotic and part businesslike,exactly the way the 38-year-old Indian-American designer intended it to be; quite the way she is as a person. “My inspirations have always been real-life women,those who work and bring up a family and still find the time to look good. I don’t do avant-garde because that’s not who I am catering to and I can’t do sexy unless it’s backed by confidence,” she says. Roy’s clients — US’s first lady Michelle Obama,Hollywood actors Gwyneth Paltrow,Penelope Cruz,Halle Berry and Kate Hudson,model Iman to name a few — seem to lap up this timeless quality of her designs,which can make them feel equally at home at a presidential visit to a foreign nation and a business meeting with a director.

Sitting in the open-air cafe of a central Delhi hotel,Roy,statuesque at 5’11”,seems rather a misfit as the NRI who delights in “doing the desi” on her annual visit to the country,despite the tattoo in Devanagari (“prem”) on her wrist and the gold kada she wears around her ankles. “This is my second visit to India (for a promotional event for Forevermark diamonds) and I remember precious little from my first visit,which was years ago when I was a child,” she says.

Born to a first-generation immigrant Indian father and Dutch-American mother,Roy grew up in Monterey in northern California in a bohemian set-up. Her father,“eldest of 13 siblings who left Madras for the US” was a Seventh Day Adventist,who worked three jobs — as a professor of sociology,a nurse in a local psychiatric ward and a carpenter — while her mother was a programmer at a government office. Finances weren’t plush and Roy and her elder brother Rajendra contributed to the family coffers from the time they turned 14. “My father believed we should learn to be independent early on,so we did odd jobs and paid a share towards the mortgage. He was also quite strict about how much television we were allowed to watch. He was a huge fan of the Marx brothers and we had one of the earliest VCRs in the block. It was only during the weekends that he would let us watch old classics. That’s how I came to be acquainted with fashion first,from the outfits that Marlene Dietrich and Ava Gardner wore,” says Roy.

If her father was strict about their upbringing,he also taught the children the importance of thinking on their feet. Roy’s interest in fashion did not escape him and on weekends,father and daughter would make trips to thrift stores and garage sales to help Roy pick up pieces and put together outfits that would make her stand out. Her mother took them out to museums and art shows (Rajendra is the curator of films at the Museum of Modern Art,New York,one of the youngest in the art circuit),where they spent hours ambling around watching “both the serious established painters and the more experimental ones.”

Roy also found time to work as a stock girl at the immensely popular tween fashion store Contempo Casuals,from the time she was 16,eventually becoming an assistant manager there,learning about people’s taste from her customers. “I took in a bit of fashion from everyone. After my hours at Contempo,I used to work at an aquarium,where I hung out with a group of girls who were into Goth. Then every year,my aunts would visit us and I would be intrigued by their kohl-rimmed eyes and their gold bangles. I drew from all of these and I think I looked reasonably well put-together,” she says.

Her designs are relaxed,free as they are from the frenzy of seasonal trends. “A couple of years ago,when I first met Andre Leon Talley (former editor of the American Vogue),he told me,‘I like you because you have a point of view. Trends come and go,but fashion is also a culture that derives from consistency. Don’t lose that point of view,and you’ll be fine.’ Whatever I have learnt has been from talking to people and working from the bottom up. It’s worked for me,” she says.

After graduating in Liberal Arts from Washington Adventist University,Maryland,Roy moved to New York at 19,working at odd jobs and styling for music videos. That was how she met music mogul Damon Dash,producer of American rapper Jay-Z. Roy joined his urban wear label Rocawear,working her way up from intern to creative director,before she went on to launch her own label Rachel Roy in 2005. She also married Dash,with whom she has two daughters,and whom she divorced in 2009. What could easily have been the vanity fair of a business magnate’s wife,however,soon took on the nature of serious business. She was invited to fashion weeks,where she got generous reviews and good business and was inducted into The Council of Fashion Designers Association (CFDA),America’s premier fashion body in 2007,just two years after she started out.

Roy is quick to grab business opportunities where she sees one,even if it means adopting the gimmicky. During the economic slowdown in 2009,she launched a second diffusion line RACHEL Rachel Roy,meant for a younger clientele and priced evenly,keeping in mind the mood of the market. Every few seasons,she teams up with a celebrity for a limited edition capsule collection that are almost always a sell-out — she has worked with British pop singer Estelle and Brazilian musician Seu Jorge. This year,she has worked with yoga guru Deepak Chopra on a capsule that will be launched next month.

Part of her charm,and Roy is quick to acknowledge it,is her mix of exotica and cosmopolitanism,that has won her admirers like Michelle Obama,who wears her outfits regularly at speeches and state visits as well as private time out with her daughters. “In any of the arts,a little bit of exotica is good. I stand out in a crowd because of my mixed lineage and it has helped me to an extent. The more unique you are,it’s easier for you to stand out. Would Gianni Versace have been the designer he went on to become,if he wasn’t different?” she says. But there is still some ground to be covered. There’s a store coming up in China and plans of expansion in India,where she only retails out of a single boutique. “My plan is to grow the business and go international in a big way. But I’m not there yet,” she says.