Kiran & Meghana Myoho stocked at Ensemble, Melange and Zoya (all in Mumbai), Ogaan (New Delhi), Elahe (Hyderabad)	Nishka Lulla Nisshk stocked at Fuel, Chowpatty (Mumbai)
They seek the fine balance between Western sensibilities and Indian values

They are the yuppie crowd of the fashion world, bubbling with ideas and willing to compete with the old guards. Many have already made a name for themselves and are just waiting for the ultimate pinnacle of fame. Some have already conquered the world and are waiting to win the domestic circle, while some others have already started flaunting their own clothesline. They have everything going for them –and when the freshness of youth is mingled with a hunger to innovate, you know that they are poised to becoming something big.

One such newbie, Nishka Lulla, is a fashion graduate from SNDT. “With a fashion background and watching mum dress up the who’s who of the fashion industry, it wasn’t new to me,” she says. “Even as a kid I loved to dress up my Barbies and the idol of Lord Krishna. I have attended a lot of photo shoots with mum and keenly watched the way she does her styling.” Her dream to
emulate her mom – designer diva Neeta Lulla – seems to have manifested into a reality today.

You can see their passion for the craft as you look through the collection of the duo of Meghna Agarwal and Kiran Jaisinghani. For Meghana, “it was the thirst for a medium to express random
ideas and moods’’ which got her here, while for Kiran it was more about “the minute art-and-craft detailing that went beyond playing with paper and clay to dabbling on the huge canvas of different
fabrics’’.

For Tanvi Kedia and Sonam Mehta, it was a childhood game of designing for their dolls and playing with clothes that turned into a passion for designing clothes as adults. The same goes for the Kolkatta-born designer Preeti Jhawar, who recently got married and moved to Mumbai.

Whatever it was that led them to this world, they all agree that to succeed here one has to be prepared to struggle and slog. Fame, money and acceptance don’t come easy. The dream of dressing up beautiful men, women, actors, celebrities and others requires a lot of toiling based on a sound foundation of education in this field.

Says Sonam Mehta, “A design school is like a tool that helps a student get the necessary skill set.’’ Add Kiran and Meghana, “Every institute has an individual training base. But like every profession, experience is one’s biggest teacher. Institutes give you the basics but the real details on how the industry works and the nuances of the trade is what you learn on the job.’’ Nishka puts it more succinctly: “The training is essential but the creativity comes from within you and requires you to use your soul to create a signature design.’’