- 1971 (MCMLXXI)
- Living
- Indian
- Anamika Khanna, AK-OK
- •First Indian designer at Paris Couture Week (2007)
- •Dhoti pant draping
- •The draped pant-sari
- •Global-heritage fusion
Anamika Khanna
The Jaipur-born Kolkata designer who, in 2007, became the first Indian designer to show at Paris Couture Week.
Anamika Khanna was born in 1971 in Jaipur and moved to Kolkata after her marriage into the Khanna family. She had no formal design training. She launched her label in 1998 from her Kolkata home studio.
The Paris Debut
In September 2007 Khanna presented at Paris Couture Week — the first Indian designer to do so. The show, at the Palais de Tokyo, combined her signature draped trousers (a reengineering of the traditional dhoti), layered kurtas, and embroidered jackets. The collection was picked up by Harvey Nichols London and Browns within the week.
I do not design fusion. I design what Indian clothes are already — fluid, layered, moving. — Anamika Khanna
The Drape
Khanna’s structural innovation is the draped pant-sari: a sari draped over trousers, pleated from the front, falling as pallu over the shoulder. The silhouette has become, in the last decade, one of the signature silhouettes of contemporary Indian formal wear, alongside Sabyasachi’s bridal lehenga and Tahiliani’s pre-pleated sari.
The label remains independently held. Her son Vishesh Khanna has headed business operations since 2020.
