Satya Paul

Some Lesser Known Facts About Satya Paul

• Satya Paul was an acclaimed Indian entrepreneur and fashion designer whose eponymous designer label gained popularity for its digital print saris in the 90s in India. He is dubbed as “the man who reinvented the sari.” ^[6]The Hindu

• His family fled Layyah, Pakistan, and settled in New Delhi after the partition of India in 1947.

• In New Dehli, his father established a small restaurant in the Sarojini Nagar area called Punjab Watani, where Paul worked as an errand boy. After the success of the restaurant, Paul set up a cafe, Albany Café. Numerous artists of that era would hang out in the cafe and have long discussions on arts, philosophy, politics, and current affairs. The most prominent of those artists were Arjun Dev Rashk (film writer) and Jagjit Singh (singer). In an interview, Paul’s son, Puneet Nanda, recalling his father’s journey, said,
  

  He (Satya Paul) created Albany Café for the artists to hang out. I remember hearing that they used to tell Jagjit Singh, if you want us to listen to you, you bring the whiskey!”

  However, the pressure of running the café led Paul to seek other business opportunities, and that is when he decided to venture into textile retailing. In an interview, Paul recalled the same and said,

  From a zero start, my father and I ran a restaurant in Sarojni Nagar (Delhi), which became quite famous at that time. The struggle was intense. From that I decided to enter the textile business as I thought it would be less taxing, though one was to see equally challenging times ahead.”

• By 1965, he acquired the cottage emporium franchise from the government. Thereafter, he established a shop which retailed women’s and men’s garments as well as home decor. In the beginning, he lacked knowledge of fabric and design, but he acquired it through self-learning.

• In 1967, he dissolved the arrangement and started his own handloom emporium.

• Paul continued to work in retail until the late 1960s. In 1975, he entered the niche market of Indian heirlooms, which he exported overseas.

• In 1980, he founded a women’s clothing store, L’affaire, in New Delhi; L’affaire is known to be India’s first sari boutique. ^[7]The Hindu

• He founded the designer label Satya Paul on 1 April 1985, along with his son, Puneet Nanda, who was 17 at that time. The label’s product line comprised women’s designer wear especially saris, kurtas, handbags, clutches, and scarves, as well as men’s accessories like neckties, belts, wallets, pocket squares, and cufflinks. However, the label rose to prominence in the 90s for its range of digital print saris. In an interview, Puneet Nanda talked about their choice of working with sarees and said,
  

  The choice of working with a sari was deliberate, as at that point 90% of women wore a sari and we wanted this to be a brand that was relevant to every Indian woman.”

• One of the first luxury designer labels, Satya Paul revolutionized saris by fusing Indian weaving techniques with contemporary palettes which gave rise to pieces with polka dots and zebra stripes adorned with abstract motifs.

  

• Apparently, Paul established the label after returning from the Osho commune in Oregon, where he had gone with his family in 1982 after selling his export business.

• In 1987, the brand started organising solo fashion shows across India. The shows were adorned with live Hindustani and Carnatic music by celebrated musicians like Hariprasad Chaurasia, Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman, and Ustad Usman Khan.

  

• A Satya Paul store was established in Bengaluru in 1990.

• Paul introduced choreographed collections in India. His collections like Museum, Rainbow, and the Signature Collection, had a theme or narrated a story. He was also one of the first designers to design concept saris.

  

• By the early 2000s, the homegrown brand had spread across India with 30 exclusive stores.

• In 2001, the label was acquired by Genesis Colors Private Limited following which Satya Paul passed on his mantle to his son, Puneet Nanda, who assumed the position of creative director of the label. Meanwhile, Paul continued to work internationally through the parent company, Paul Salon.

• Nanda quit the company in 2010 after which he started volunteering at Isha Foundation. In 2015, Paul Salon, the parent company that did exports, was closed and Paul moved from New Dehli to live at Isha Yoga Centre in Coimbatore.

• Satya Paul did not like giving interviews. In an interview, while explaining his reluctance he said,
  

  There is currently an atmosphere of wanting to be a celebrity more than standing for the work that one does. I would like the work to speak for what I do. I don’t belong to the cult of a celebrity.”

• A passionate devotee of Osho, Satya Paul once obtained the rights to use Osho’s signatures on Satya Paul sarees.

• Satya was fond of poetry, music, and the arts. In an interview, Puneet Nanda revealed that Paul’s interest in poetry was beyond the Indian milieu, and he enjoyed writers like William Somerset Maugham, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Richard Hugo.