Our Story

My earliest memory of clothes go back to my early childhood, sitting in my Granny’s home, piles of cloth material, in different fabrics, textures, colors, ready to take life and shape, ready to be stitched in my Granny’s black Singer machine. The whole ambience used to be mesmerizing, the threads, chalk markers, scissors etc. My Granny moving her legs and hands simultaneously, like in some rhythm, like in some trance.

Those were the pre-globalisation times. Everybody used to wear tailored clothes, readymade clothing was still in its nascent years. Tailors used to be important people, particularly close to the festival season. There used to be a long list of orders amongst few tailors. And my Granny was a notch above, she was a Designer. Yes, now when I look back, I realise, she was a Fashion Designer. She used to introduce her own trends in the neighbourhood. She used to go on this fabric hunting expeditions to the cloth/fabric-markets to give shape to her own designs, that she used to draw in her note-book, no sophistication, pure heart and passion. And she used to swell by pride when those creations finally adorned the physicality of her clients. Actually ‘clients’ is a dry word, it robs the intimacy out of the relationships, so her patrons/admirers.

She used to talk about clothes as if they were living beings. She used to assign characters to clothes- this is brash, that is naughty, that one is innocent etc, and from her, I learnt that clothing is less about vanity, its more about communication. In their subconcious mind, people pick and choose certain clothes because they want to communicate, communicate their presence primarily, and then their ideas and stories. And I also learnt from her that clothing is also about ‘Entertainment’, in the context that when a piece of clothing brings a smile on a patron’s face, he/she is basically admiring a ‘performance’..

Robby Zora Design Studio is the culmination of that legacy. Fashion is also about fluidity, being fluid means to constantly push boundaries. To identify and assimilate the youth culture is significant, not only local or regional, but also the global youth culture. And the term ‘Youth’ is also not about age, its about the vibe, about being relevant and contemporary.. What makes the world and its inhabitants evolve is the constant influx of ideas, their aborption, rejection and transformation. Being popular is good, being impactful is better, being nothing is best, because from here lies the genesis of everything..

With Love

From Robby Zora