Kaveri Lalchand’s official bio notes that she is an ‘actor-dancer-cook’ but a more comprehensive description might read ‘actor-dancer-cook-designer-publisher-entrepreneur’ and if you were looking for more nouns to describe her they wouldn’t be hard to find. Traveller is one – she was in Mumbai when she did this email interview with the Sunday Times but is … Continue reading
Incongruously, Jenny Welwert Gil likes her tuna leather smelling ever so subtly of coconut. She massages coconut butter into it to turn it a darker hue and make it fragrant. She then uses the leather to create wallets and bags, jackets and shoes for her label ‘Khogy’. Her material challenges your expectations: “Tuna leather is … Continue reading
On Layn Baan St in Galle Fort, two exquisitely melancholy sea monsters are separated by a rusty gate. Stricken by grief, one wears a tower for a hat, the other towers above the lighthouse, rising above the fort with a ship bleeding oil cradled in its thin, long arms. The black ooze around their waists … Continue reading
Mika Tennekoon’s small living room is packed full of suitcases. That’s great because Mika is a girl going places, except in the strictly literal sense. It’s been over two years since she gave up her job in London to return home and it’s been a comfortably productive period in her life. Mika’s work – fanciful, … Continue reading
The Old Railway is housed in what used to be an electrician’s shop. Upstairs, a pretty little café overlooks the canal but it is the workshop downstairs that Catherine Rawson really considers her domain. There are clothes everywhere you look and interspersed among them are an eclectic selection of books and jewellery, bags and handicrafts. … Continue reading
Darshi Keerthisena is that rare hybrid – an astute businesswoman and the head of her own company on one hand and on the other a master designer with an enviable body of work to her credit. Where you might see an item of clothing, Darshi sees a canvas and way to reinvent an old and … Continue reading
Enter Mahen Chanmugam’s house and you will find it impossible to escape the scrutiny of Lord Ganesh. Lord of Beginnings and Remover of Obstacles, the elephant-headed son of Parvathi is everywhere: a dozen tiny Lords cast in metal observe you from their spot on the dining table and another one sits wreathed in incense by … Continue reading
Julian Fellowes, the creator of the acclaimed British period drama Downton Abbey, once called his costume designer Susannah Buxton a “sculptress in cloth”. Her designs for the show’s first two seasons won her an Emmy Award for ‘Outstanding Costumes for a Series’ in 2011 (one of the record breaking 27 Emmy’s the show has garnered) … Continue reading
The world of high fashion is divided into people who have worn a hat by Stephen Jones and those who have not. In the former camp are the aristocrats you’d spot at Ascot and a dozen actresses including Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley and Cate Blanchett. There’s Carla Bruni Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s … Continue reading
Christobel Weerasinghe née Kotalawala was born on the day her father became a member of the Legislative Council. It was the beginning of the 1920s and the life she inherited was one of extraordinary privilege – her family could trace their genealogy back to the kings of Kotte and in the present her father, Sir … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 