Sanjukta Dutta is an entrepreneur, designer, and a storyteller, who is making efforts in narrating the beauty of fashion that is more than just a passing trend.
Sanjukta Dutta, an Assamese designer par excellence, who hails from Nagaon near Guwahati, creates a unique combination of clubbing traditions and prints of different geographies into one unique customized piece of garment, with the Assamese silk Mekhla Chador in most of the cases being the base.
Her stylish, fashionable and exquisite range of completely customized Assamese `Mekhla Chador’ enchanted the audience at the Mysore Fashion Week 2015 and left the audience spellbound at The Indian Beach Fashion Week 2016. She was the first Assamese woman designer to showcase her collection at the Lakme Fashion Week 2016, 2017 and 2018 in Mumbai including her new collection ‘Abor’ at the Lakme Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2018 and FDCI Lotus India Fashion Week 2018. Everyone from Bollywood including Hema Malini, Rajeshwari, Preity Zinta, Esha Deol, Dia Mirza, Bipasha Basu and many more have worn Sanjukta’s creation.
Sanjukta completed her engineering studies in Assam and worked in the PWD department with the Government of Assam. A chance that encountered in 2012 gave wings to her idea. As an artist, Sanjukta loves playing with colors and designs, and this took her to various parts of the country. From being influenced by the Bandhej of Gujarat, Leheria from Rajasthan, Ari from Kashmir and digital prints, she experimented, twisted and evolved textures with her own touch which were very much based on the Assamese ethos but also blended with futuristic tastes.
Sanjukta is of the singular belief that clothing and attire is not just a piece of cloth but a key and integral part of every human being and their identity. It is her central belief that one’s clothing tells a story, of not just the kind of person he/she is but also the mood.
Sanjukta’s passion has seen her design empire grow to necessitate the setup of 13 factories, starting with Maa Durga Axomiya Pat and Muga Kapuror Boyon Protisthon in Guwahati itself, which translates to over 100 looms where she produces her characteristic silk ‘Mekhela Chadors’, with different varieties of colored silk threads, especially Muga & Pat. She has added a new dimension to her creativity by working on designing of traditional Assamese jewelry as well. These captivating pieces of jewelry, like her clothing lines, are also custom-made, handcrafted and designed in different shapes and sizes of some of the most popular Assamese traditional jewelry – Dug Dugi, KeruMoni, Junbiri etc. Thus, bringing together traditional Assamese jewelry designs with more contemporary and chic styling.
Her latest venture, a professional commercial studio, SANJUKTA’S STUDIO, was formally inaugurated on September 11, 2014 in the presence of an august gathering and offers a wide choice of her characteristic silk `Mekhla Chadors’ with different varieties of colored silk threads – ranging from orange, blue and yellow apart from traditional colors like red, black. She is also working towards reviving the traditional Muga silk based Mekhala Chador which is a dying design form. Every single Mekhla Chador designed by her is unique, customized, handcrafted and goes through a rigorous 45-day production cycle before it can effectively tell the story that the beautiful woman draping it wants it to.
Her fixation on customizing her creations for her clients coupled with her passion for storytelling through clothing has led Sanjukta to global fame and her creations were presented to the royal families during their visit in 2016.
Sanjukta Dutta received the “Stardust Global Indian Icon Achievers Awards” in the designer category, which was awarded in an event on 13th July 2017 at the Plaza, New York. In 2018 Sanjukta was felicitated with the award of “Fashion Designer of the Year” for keeping handloom alive by Dadasaheb Phalke Excellence Award.
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