An electric charm
If the title of an enterprise were any indication of the brains behind it, then the name Bombay Electric is spot on for its founder Priya Kishore. With a personality as quirky and colourful as the clothes she wears, Priya exudes the creative restlessness one associates with a game changer. Her store Bombay Electric burst into Mumbai’s fashion scene at the right time and gave it a new lease of life, when the colours were starting to fade out.
Reminiscing about those days, Priya says, “I could see that there was an urgent need for a uniquely Indian perspective on design, somewhere that new ideas could germinate and flower.”
Fast forward five years and now Bombay Electric is the only Indian nominee for the prestigious WGSN Breakthrough Brand. “It’s been a wonderful journey,” she adds.
But when she started off, this Oxford graduate who had politics, philosophy and economics as her core subjects couldn’t have been more far removed from fashion. “I do think it’s more enjoyable to take the scenic route in life, it is about the journey after all. Oxford was about being curious about everything around me, trying to figure out how things work and why, being interested in people and why we do what we do. It’s not such a big leap to then looking at how people communicate through visual signaling,” says Priya.
About her own quirky fashion sense Priya says, “I have been described as the love child of Grace Jones and Audrey Hepburn in the past.... and strangely enough, I think that’s spot on.” Her approach towards fashion is as unorthodox as her clothes. “While dressing up someone, alongside obvious questions about favourite colour and style, it’s always good to know about their favourite film, the kind of music they like to listen to — it’s very important to understand the mindset of a person,” says Priya who describes herself as a “vagabond at heart”. “Travel is always top of the list. I do love the water — swimming, scuba diving and sailing are just my things. And I am crazy about films too,” she adds.
So what’s her next dream after Bombay Electric? “Horse riding in Mongolia!” she says.
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