BAZAAR

What made you decide to start a label together?Gauri Karan: We’ve both loved fashion since we wereyoung. We used to watch old Hollywood movies andimagine making and wearing those clothes. Both of usfelt that you didn’t really get Western clothes in Indiaso it made sense to start our own label.What were you most competitive about as kids?Nainika Karan: We never ight except for those regularsibling spats that you forget about in a second.What’s the best part about working with your sister?GK: It’s kind of like we’re like one person; weunderstand each other so completely. There is noquestion of ofending one another other; in fact weinish each other’s sentences.NK: Everything is fun and nothing is really work.How do you split responsibility?NK: Gauri is the big planner and I’m the executor.What do you admire about each other’s style?NK: With her red lipstick and winged eyeliner, Gauriexudes a very natural, old-world glamour.GK: Nainika can pretty much carry of anything.Has your childhood influenced your design?GK: Our parents put a lot of emphasis on the idea that‘less is more’. Our mother’s standard outit was redlipstick, sunglasses, a polo neck, and jeans.NK: She wore pearls, not diamonds.GK: Our father comes from a royal family in Hyderabad.It’s always about being understated for him too, an ideawe try and relect in our own design philosophy.Share a fashion memory from your childhood.NK: We were obsessed with the ilm My Fair Lady. There’sa scene where Audrey Hepburn wears a white lace outitwhich we were so obsessed with that we took a lacetablecloth apart and took turns wearing it as a dress.``````GAURI KARAN AND NAINIKA KARAN,FASHION DESIGNERS``````THIS PAGE: On Nainika: Dress, Gauri & Nainika. OPPOSITE PAGE: On Gauri: Dress, Gauri & Nainika. Shoes, her own.