“My journey and growth as a designer has provided context to my creativity.”
- Leon Vaz
After graduating from Mumbai’s St Xavier’s College, Leon Vaz decided to study fashion design at the Pearl Academy Of Fashion in New Delhi. His first professional experiences in fashion were his internships with young designers like Varun Sardana and Nitin Bal Chauhan in Delhi. He eventually returned to Mumbai to work at one of India’s biggest fashion export houses, where he began to develop his areas of expertise and learnt the applications of design at a whole new level. Working with major international labels like Valentino and Armani taught him about all that goes into building a brand and about the serious business of fashion as it is in an evolved fashion market. This helped Leon when he established his own export company. After working with the biggest names in couture from Paris, New York, London and Milan, he realised that with India as such a massive source of design inspiration and skilled craftsmanship, people in India deserved the same standards of quality as consumers of couture in the west do. That and Leon’s partnership with Karan Berry—a product of the seamless synchrony between their work and design principles—led to their decision to co-create a fashion label. And that is how Karleo came about. Leon’s vision for a career in fashion was to create clothes for special occasions. Clothes to him are the language of a wearer and a glimpse of their personality. While communicating this idea to the tailors and embroiderers is important, he considers it equally important for the client to understand what goes into creating a garment. He feels that the work done by tailors and craftsmen gets lost somewhere, which shouldn’t be the case, because of how much importance is associated with a piece of couture. Leon’s understanding of how important a wedding gown is for a bride, a red-carpet outfit is to a celebrity, or any couture garment is to the person wearing it, makes him a better designer. And that is a big part of the service that Karleo provides its customers. Leon sees Karleo as one day being a one-stop shop for planning one’s entire wedding wardrobe, or outfits for key moments in one’s life, or a place where anyone can simply go because they want to make something special and work with good people in order to do so.
“Being involved in a good mix of varied design work is what keeps me going, creatively.”
-Karan Berry
Karan Berry was more intrigued by design in general before the fashion bug caught him. After being involved in several fashion-related projects, he decided to pursue a post-graduate diploma in fashion. After a stint in menswear at an export company, Karan even tried his hand at visual merchandising and worked with Spykar Jeans for four years. He also worked independently on the side, creating bridal trousseaus for women, all along developing a fondness towards footwear design. This took him to the London College of Fashion to pursue an Advanced Diploma In Cordwainers Footwear Design. A year later, Karan was back in Mumbai, working as a consultant, for Spykar Jeans, as well as Tata, who were planning on starting a line of footwear. It was then that he began to work towards co-creating a brand of footwear and accessories, called AKA Bespoke. Over the last few years, Karan has pursued another post-graduate course in Aesthetics, and he has associated with educational institutes like Symbiosis, SNDT, NIFT, Wigan And Leigh College Of Fashion, among others, in various capacities. After having worked in several areas of design, when the opportunity to create a fashion label with Leon Vaz arose, their seamless working relationship made him grab it. And that is how Karleo came about. Karan’s idea of a career has always been to appreciate design at all levels, which led him to working in various areas of design; even as a consultant with a few brands. In India, people were not open to the idea of a consultant working with more than one brand or company. However, that is slowly changing, and Karan is closer to realising his dream of being able to think, create, comment on and look at design from all perspectives. Even when it comes to working on his own brands, Karan likes to challenge himself with diverse work. From making bespoke footwear at the AKA workshop, going straight into couture at Karleo was a natural progression of things, especially given the synchrony between his work and Leon’s. Karan’s vision for the brand includes offering clients the ultimate in service, which he believes can come only from spending quality time with customers. Along with Leon, Karan plans to take forward Karleo, with their long-lasting values of quality over quality, in product as well as service.
Rapid Fire
Inspiration behind the collection
Drawing from the colours and eclectic culture of an Indian mela, the KARLEO winter/festive collection brings together bright colours, contrasting textures, and motifs inspired by animals. The cording detailing, in neutral tones of grey and black, is highlighted with accents of bright colours, akin to the effervescence of a mela. Pops of pink, green, orange, red and blue are used in the vibrant patterns—featuring lions, butterflies and owls, in abstract form, subtly and seamlessly woven into the thread work. This animal art is seen in the finer elements as well—in the beaded buttons and the mini pom-poms that hang off tasselled trims.
Most significant part of the collection
Cording embroidery—the most significant part of this collection—lends dramatic volume to certain garments, as well as a fitting structure to others.
Time taken to create the entire collection (From conceptualisation to creation)?
6 Months
An occasion/event where this collection can be flaunted
Red Carpet / Art Exhibition
The kind of woman this collection represents
Bold & beautiful
Have a look at their latest collection at Karleo on Knitroot. For styling tips, check out our collaboration with the blogger from Bee and Blu.
