Designer Samant Chauhan has a single-minded agenda: put a small town in Bihar on the world fashion map.
How can a Bihari wear a pair of Levi’s?†That was one of the first questions Samant Chauhan was asked by a fellow student at the National Institute of Fashion Technology in Delhi in 2002.
Chauhan’s jeans were the same shade of blue as of those from Delhi but his Hindi had a pronounced accent. He had enrolled for a postgraduate degree in knitwear design and technology and was unaware that a crash course in hauteur was essential to gain entry into the Great Indian Fashion Fraternity. He kept quiet. Not just during the jeans-versus-genes jibe, but for the first six months.
Now, as a noted designer, 30-year-old Chauhan talks passionately about Bhagalpuri silk. He speaks powerful Hindi —which few can do in Indian fashion but, due to some imaginary pressure, responds in English every time you ask him a question. With a pierced eyebrow, shaven head and a beard, his membership to the Great Indian Fashion Fraternity seems confirmed.