In the somewhat affected world of Kolkata fashion,where up-and-coming designers are only too happy to shed their regional identities and embrace a crisp pan-India accent, 31-year-old Soumitra Mondal is almost a black sheep. He wears unassuming clothes,shies away from the media,speaks with a Bengali accent and identifies himself as a Howrah boy. The small towns and villages surrounding Kolkata have wonderful weaving heritage. Places like Phulia and Bolpur are where you get the best of Bengali handloom,and these are the places that have shaped my sensibilities, says Mondal,who debuted at the Mumbais Lakme Fashion Week platform in 2007. Mondals latest collection,which was shown at the Linen Club Fashion Show in Hyderabad earlier this week,was in keeping with his design philosophy. Its unpretentious and earthy. I love the versatility of linen, he says. The linen collection will also be his first to focus on menswear. So,there will be linen bandhgalas,jodhpurs and suits. The designer has decided to stay away from LFW for now. To take part in both editions of a fashion week requires a lot of discipline. Until I have that in place,I have decided to stay away from such events, Mondal says. His work with weavers of Phulia village in Nadia district,who specialise in the jamdani style of weaving,has given a lease of life to the dying art form. I have about 70 weavers working under me. If I can set up a system through which they manage to sustain themselves and their art,I will consider myself blessed.
