Recently, his undertakings were multiplied when he was invited to become creative director for Paco Rabanne in Paris. It was the first time any French fashion house had given creative control to a designer from Asia: the fact that this one looked to Manish to revive its long-flagging fortunes said much about not only his own originality but also the changing relationship of French fashion to the world. Manish now lives between Paris and Delhi.
“Even though they’re now in Mumbai, my parents are actually from Punjab. Both their families came across at Partition. My father’s been working in Mumbai for forty years but they haven’t absorbed a single thing of the city: they’re still like anybody’s parents would be in a small town in Punjab. My mother has never left India. They are very naive.
“I am their only child, so it’s very important to them that I’ve become successful. Now they don’t mind that I’m not married! All is forgotten suddenly. That’s one reason I have to keep doing well so they are charged about me. But they don’t have a clue what I do. They’re just happy to see my picture in the newspaper. They don’t know I have a job with Paco Rabanne, for example. They just know their son has a job in Paris, which is good enough for them. You understand now — they’re that kind of parents. They don’t even know who Paco Rabanne is. And in a very nice way. I’m very happy it’s like that.
“But I had horrifying moments when I was a child. My parents didn’t get along and divorce didn’t exist in my family — it still doesn’t in the kind of background I come from. You fight but you live with each other your whole life. Of course now they’re old so it’s all become fine but my childhood was ruined. So that was one of the reasons why I left Bombay because I was disturbed mentally as a child. I loved Delhi because it gave me freedom from all that, and great friends, and a place to work myself out.”
Manish cackles with ironic laughter to deflect such solemn talk. He is a small man — we look eye to eye — and there is something about his pointed face, which tapers into a grey goatee, something about his jaunty rising eyebrows and deep-set shining eyes, that gives him a faintly diabolical air. You feel that his confidence derives from the fact that he has at some point in his life marshalled great forces of self-sufficiency to get through.
“But I think today I could say that’s why I’ve tried to do what I wanted to. If everything had been fine with my family when I was a child, maybe I would have been the most boring person today. I would just be doing some stupid business and I’d be married to a woman to hide the fact I was gay. But no: I wanted to leave, and I give that a lot of credit for what I am today. Because I told myself deep inside that I want to get out of this whole thing and be proud of myself. Maybe the fact I was lacking attention from my parents is what drove me to seek attention from everybody else. Which means: doing well in your own field so that you get appreciated. You can be greedy like that. Sometimes you can work hard only to be appreciated. And maybe that’s why I’ve never been interested in money. What I need from life is people constantly telling me that I am great at my work. And that I’ve genuinely earned it — not because I acted in one movie and became an overnight hit. I guess that’s what I live for. Because I didn’t get much appreciation as a child.
“Another very drastic experience I had in Delhi was in my twenties. I was totally obsessed for years with one person. I would have done any damn thing to be with that man. To the extent of crazy things. It was not a little crush: it went on for five or six years. My friends told me I was blind, I was obsessed, but it just went on. It was horrible. And suddenly — I don’t know what happened to me — I got out after five years and I looked at the rest of my life and I said, ‘Wow. Now… ’ You know that kind of moment? You need to save yourself. These things forced me to be successful, to want something far more than money.
“I don’t need much money. I don’t have kids to invest for. As long as I can meet my friends, I’m happy. I am not the kind who wants fancy cars. The typical Delhi male — straight or gay — just wants to have the right car to drive into the hotel and park at the porch and get out of it with everyone looking at him. He buys his Porsche just for that moment. Maybe I’ve spent too much time in France, but I don’t care about that. In Paris you can walk into a famous artist’s party and there will be the richest and the poorest people, all at the same level. Nobody gives a damn. Or you can be very rich and still ride the oldest scooter because you love it. That doesn’t exist here. Here, if you have money, even if you don’t like a car you’ll buy it because it is meant to be the best. I love that about France. They don’t just value you for the money you have. Here they ask you straight away: ‘What do you do?’ It’s the first question they always ask you.”
As one might expect, Manish works like a man possessed.
“I live for my work. I believe in that and nothing else comes in between. I’m completely focussed. So that gives me opportunity to take care of the whole business of fashion, not just designing. I have the time to do all that. In Paris, being a designer is a job. It’s a job, like being a lawyer. In Paris I wake up at 6.30; I work from 8.30. I carry my own clothes: I carry boxes of clothes in the Metro. Can you imagine a designer here who would carry his own clothes? Here the designers think they’re superstars. They forget their job, which is to make better clothes every season. It’s a job. It’s fucking hard work. Just because you’re in the Indian newspapers all the time, you don’t forget, you don’t act like a star. Have you seen how much the newspapers write about fashion designers? Don’t they have anything better to do?
“India has not become fashion-conscious. No one knows about fashion. No one knows enough about themselves to be conscious of what they want. All that has happened is that people now have money and they are aware of brand names. When you meet people in Delhi who are supposed to be the fashionistas or divas: they have the right products in their hand but they know nothing. It is not like Japan. Even there, fashion is not so old but people understand fashion. Ask a woman in Delhi why she carries a Louis Vuitton bag, and she’ll tell you that’s the bag you’re supposed to carry. Ask a woman in Japan, and she’ll tell you the whole history of Louis Vuitton.
“But when I started out in Delhi, this ignorance was helpful. Now I’m in Paris so much I feel I started out in the right place at the right time. I was working in Delhi as an assistant to well-known Indian designers, and everyone was quite naive. I learned everything by doing it because I didn’t know anything. For example, I didn’t know — it’s very stupid but it’s true — I had never seen Interview magazine until my clothes were on the cover. I didn’t get intimidated by magazines because I never saw them. My naivety has worked in my favour because I always have so much more to learn. A guy in London already knows everything when he starts and it’s more difficult for him to do his own work and prove himself again and again. If I had been in London, maybe I’d be burned out by now.”
He takes out his laptop and shows me a video of his latest show in Paris, which was organised as a magic show. He explains how the show is put together: how a collection is conceived to cater simultaneously to buyers from Europe, America, Asia and the Middle East. His sentences begin, “I know you’re not interested, but… ” — and he goes on to explain materials and textures, how this was sewn, how that was designed on a computer and laser-cut. He talks about the clothes he made for Lady Gaga.