It has been over a month since Manish Malhotra closed Dubai Fashion Week in the golden city, but he has been so hard to pin down. He has spent more days and nights than he can remember flitting in and out of private planes to and from Jamnagar in Gujarat, where he has been assigned to make 500 uniforms for Vantara, the animal rescue centre run by Reliance which Prime Minister Narendra Modi just officially launched. And, of course, being hosted by the President of India at Rashtrapati Bhavan when the Amir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, visited recently.
Style file: Manish Malhotra closed the Dubai Fashion Week in February. International supermodels Adriana Lima (on Malhotra’s left) and Valery Kaufman (on his right) walked for him.
The Middle East has long been on Malhotra’s mind, especially since he opened his first store in Dubai in 2004, even before he opened in India in 2006. “I’ve always seen a future in Dubai,” he says. “Every year that I travelled to Dubai I felt it evolved, became a bigger melting pot of nationalities, became more diverse and inclusive. When I felt that I wanted to restart my journey internationally, I wanted to begin with Dubai.”
Urmila Matondkar and Manish Malhotra
He opened a grand store in the very prime Dubai Mall in December 2023, designed by Gauri Khan. Malhotra says among his clients, there are as many NRIs as there are Arabs, Russians and even the odd Chinese customer.
Malhotra, 58, is easily India’s most famous fashion designer, and also its most famous costume designer. (His personal and business Instagram handles together have over 10 million followers.) His career as a stylist started 35 years ago. Ten years later, he would launch himself as a fashion designer. “Everyone was making copies of my costumes and milking me, except me,” he laughs.
We are sitting in his Mumbai headquarters, a sumptuous 40,000sqft atelier spread over four floors in Bandra West, where Malhotra is often in his swanky open-door cabin by 8.30am. The building is owned by Reliance Brands Limited, the company that invested in Malhotra’s MM Styles Pvt Ltd in 2021 and now owns a 40 per cent stake. The money involved remains undisclosed, but the investment is touted to be RBL’s largest among the Indian luxury labels. Malhotra also opened a 30,000sqft atelier in Noida in 2023, as he says opening a store in Delhi’s Mehrauli area proved to be a game-changer for his business. He currently operates three stores in Mumbai, and one each in Delhi, Hyderabad and Dubai.
“I’ve known the Ambanis closely for nearly 10 years now, ever since I was invited to do a show at Antilia,” Malhotra says, referring to the Ambanis’ Mumbai residence, a 27-storey building that, according to rumours, cost $2 billion. “I never had a partnership or an investment from them in my mind, I only wanted to produce films,” he smiles. “There were queries from others, too, but I had refused. But when it came to Reliance, and I am a big fan of what they have built, I said yes. It has been a great partnership, one that loves and trusts each other.”
Malhotra says his business has grown by 35 per cent in the last two years. “We have seen much profit, and we have even shared dividends between the two parties,” he says. “That was such a proud moment. Whatever I do, I want to be on top of it.”
When he says on top of things, what is the number he means, I ask him. “What’s the number I would like my company at? Oh, Rs1,000 crore,” he says. “I wouldn’t say we are very close to it. But I would also say we are not very far from it.”
Elegant spaces: Malhotra’s store at dubai mall, designed by gauri khan, has nri, arab, russian and even chinese shoppers frequenting.
Malhotra enjoys a unique position in the industry. He is the only designer who began as a stylist for films, before launching himself into mainstream fashion. He has his fingers dipped in both businesses; he even announced his production company, Stage 5, in 2023, which will release three films in the next two years, starring thespians like Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi and Zeenat Aman.
Malhotra used to be a model who had employed a tailor at home to make some quick money by selling clothes at an exhibition in Hong Kong. “I could sketch, and Lali Dhawan, who is a cousin, told her husband, [filmmaker] David Dhawan, that I was designing,” he says. “He was looking for some clothes for Juhi Chawla for a song in Swarg (1990). And that’s how it all began.”
He credits his parents for supporting a boy who wanted to design clothes. “I am self-taught, I learned on the job. By the time NIFT opened in Mumbai, I was already working,” he recalls. His 94-year-old mother and he still live together, in a phenomenal five-storey building at Bandra’s swishy Pali Hill, also designed by Gauri Khan.
Within five years, he would become a household name working with Ram Gopal Varma and Urmila Matondkar in Rangeela (1995). Malhotra had made itsy-bitsy Barbie-style dresses for Matondkar, launching both her and himself into legend status. Their iconic partnership has resulted in a friendship of 30 years. Matondkar attended his Dubai Fashion Week show and was a showstopper at another fashion show recently. In fact, the two heralded the idea of a movie star for show-stopper in fashion shows, a phenomenon unique to India.
He worked extensively with Sridevi, and when designing for her for Yash Johar’s Gumrah (1993), he became friends with Karan Johar. “Karan was assisting Aditya Chopra then, and I was working out of [actor] Moushumi Chatterjee’s garage,” he says. “One day the two of them came to my workshop and offered me Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995).” After this, Malhotra’s meteoric rise as a costume designer continued with films like Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Jab We Met (2007), Dostana (2008) and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013). He has maintained his friendship with everyone from Matondkar and Sridevi to Johar. He now designs for Sridevi’s daughters Janhvi and Khushi Kapoor, and Bhavana Pandey’s daughter Ananya Panday (he had made Bhavana’s wedding outfit).
He is also a close friend of Nita and Mukesh Ambani, and part of all their celebrations. Last year, he was the master of ceremonies at the mega wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, planning, orchestrating and designing everything from the wedding decor, to clothes to flower arrangements. “It showed what India is all about―luxury, artisans, rituals, opulence,” he says. “I know for a fact the employment that wedding gave on such a large scale to local artisans, wall painters, rangoli artists, singers, weavers of bandhani and paithani, and so many more.”
One could say that Malhotra is back to modelling; his ad campaigns for Range Rover, Samsonite, Swiggy, Oppo phones and others have earned him roughly Rs50 crore in the last two years alone. He is truly a successful multi-hyphenate. “I want to do everything. This is why my production company is called Stage 5; I have come to films after modelling, costume, fashion and jewellery,” he says, before running off to watch a film with Matondkar.