We recently brought you news about the tie up between one of the foremost names in the Indian Dance Music industry, Nikhil Chinapa, and online fashion retailing mogul, Koovs. The tie up brings to you a fresh new clothing line that draws large inspiration from the underground dance music scene. It’s quirky, it’s fresh, and most of all, it’s extremely chic. To top it all off, they’re celebrating the launch with a secret underground gig on August 21st! We caught up with Nikhil Chinapa, and had a little discussion about it all. Here’s an excerpt:
Nikhil Chinapa has a lot to say on the state of music in India, especially the Underground scene. When asked about the exclusive secret gig coming up, he divulged enough for the concept to sound slightly philosophical:
It comes from a place where I believe that there are enough people who care enough about music today in Mumbai and across India, who aren’t necessarily happy with the quality of music that is being played out across multiple venues. And invariably every venue has an aura about the kind of music that they play, depending where you go to whether it is a bar or a club or a pre-going out place that you go to. What we are trying to do here is put together something for people who want to discover something different from what is already being offered across venues in Mumbai and offer them a night out which is going to be an interesting experience. I use the word interesting in an extremely loose manner. It is expected to be spectacular but for now for definition sake we will call it interesting. And the idea of doing this as a secret gig is just to tease people’s imagination a little bit. But we are going to cap it at about 250 people. This is not going to be for 2,000-3,000 people. It is going to be a small intimate gig and very special.
In the same breath, he continued on about what Underground music really means in India and whether it could ever be considered Mainstream:
Underground music was given its name because it was music that was not being played in all the big venues and the radio and back in the day in the mid 80s and early 90s some DJ started throwing parties in basements for small groups of people playing very eclectic and different music. Because this was weird and eclectic music played in basements they started calling the music underground. Since then alternative forms of music, especially in the electronic space have been classified as underground.
The minute underground music becomes mainstream it stops being underground. Although what is underground music today can become the sound of music tomorrow. For example, let’s say that pasta is underground food and suddenly a million people start eating pasta it becomes mainstream but the flavour of the pasta remains the same. In the same way the tonal quality of underground music today can become mainstream but the minute it does that it stops being by definition underground. But there is definitely a growing number of people in India who want to listen to music that isn’t playing on everyone’s cars or iPhones or whatever systems they have. They do want to discover music that is beyond the ordinary, which is what has inspired us to create this collection together with Koovs. Music is different, the clothes are different and the experience is definitely going to be out of the ordinary.
Again, supremely philosophical.
To lighten the mood, we asked him about the most outrageous outfit he had seen at a gig:
This morning at breakfast there was a tall lean black man wearing a thong, a bikini top with a cowboy hat and he had his lips painted bright red. He was also wearing Zebra hiking shoes!
Bringing us to the topic of fashion and his collaboration with KOOVS, Nikhil had this to offer:
It’s been six months that we have been working on this collection and it will be launched in September. We have gone through several different drafts of the design process to come to the different products that we want to put out and what the underline design palette is going to be.
If you look at the music that we are trying to click with the NIKHILXKOOVS collection it’s a very toned down kind of design palette and it goes along with the kind of music. It is in a way lifestyle but not the kind of lifestyle in a Louis Vuitton manner that we’ve come to know in the world as. We decided to go with understated colours, very comfortable fabric and more comfort fits for most of the clothes rather than something that is body hugging.
It is extremely difficult to put this into words because it is like trying to describe the flavour of a plum cake. You can talk about the fruit and how moist the cake is but you’ve got to eat to know what the cake is about. It’s the same thing with this music if you watch a lot of videos of underground clubs, artists and music you get an essence of what we are doing with this line of clothing.
Food analogies are always a plus point.
As for the kind of clothes he suggests people wear to gigs:
I would love for people to just be themselves. What really doesn’t work for me is the clothes that are pretentious, shoes that don’t work for dancing. So, comfortable shoes and non-pretentious clothes would be the thing that I would recommend people to wear wherever they are going.
For the kind of audience he’s looking at for the impending secret gig, Nikhil made a clever comparing the target group he’s really looking at for both the gig and subsequently the fashion line as well:
In terms of where these clothes belong is similar to what submerge was when we started it 11 years ago. We were very clear that the music that we played at submerge wasn’t for everyone. It was for someone who knew exactly what they wanted and they went out looking for it. Much the same way this collection for Koovs I don’t believe that it will be for everyone either. I can certainly see a large section of our elders frowning at some of the clothes that we are going to put out, because they aren’t your usual T-shirts and jeans.
So when we decided to do this secret gig and take over a location we knew that it wouldn’t be at a regular ballroom. It would rather be something that you can walk out with a bunch of fresh memories in your mind. You’ve got to be there to know what it is.
From the gig we moved on to asking him about the release of his new app, MUSIC HUBB:
Hubb was an idea that Rohit Barker and I had for a long time. There is so much great talent in India and we specially designed Hubb to answer few questions, which is ‘who is playing?’ Where are they playing? What sometimes does happen in the large cacophony of sound and music events and artists is that some really talented artists get ground out because even if you look at the global space the artists with the largest space and the most amount of money are able to make the most amount of noise. So it is good to have a platform or a source to find out what else is happening in the music space and who else is doing interesting stuff with music.
For the compilation we have reached out to someone who has become a very good friend very quickly—a DJ called Yousef who set up a recording company 11 or 12 years ago called Circus Recording and also runs a line of circus which is very popular across the world. In fact they had a circus tent at global gathering which is one of the world’s biggest festivals that was held recently in the UK. So when I spoke to Yousef about this idea of doing clothes and linking it to music he quite liked what we were talking about. He saw the collection and he’s put together a compilation of music from his label. Again it is out of the ordinary and I am hoping that people will be able to link to it. The music does of course breathe the same spirit as the clothes line does. It is subtle, it is a bit intense and I think it can also be fun.
Lastly, we asked him his favourite Underground tracks
‘All That Matters’ by Kolsch
‘A Track’ by Monkey Safari
‘Rise of Angel’ by Luciano
While talking to Emma Reed, head of men’s wear at the elite online retailer, we asked her a few questions about the entire collaboration.
We spoke to her about why the entire theme of this new line of clothing, was specifically focused on the underground aspect of Dance Music.
We wanted to bring something new to the Market so we created a collection inspired by runway designers such as Saint Laurent, with a totally down to earth approach to fashion and style. The underground scene is synonymous with a rejection of superficial, material things and with the freedom to express individuality and personal style. This is something both we and Nikhil are keen to align ourselves with.
She went on to elaborate on how the clothing line addresses the underground.
The pieces from the collection can be styled to suit the wearer. The silhouettes are a mixture of fitted, long-line and oversized and are designed to be worn as layers to create an individual look. The colour palate is dark and moody with minimal injections of muted colour and the fabrics used are of a high quality, finished to look as though they just happen to have been in your wardrobe forever. It is understated yet incredibly cool, just like the underground aspect of dance music.
And their target consumers
Our target customer is the fashion conscious 18-30 yr old man, who loves clothes and wants to express his individuality in an understated way.
When asked if the clothing line would only be limited to club wear, here’s what she had to say:
Not at all. This collection can be worn from day to night. It is informal and comfortable, stylish and versatile but not intended perhaps to be worn to work!
[…] the days leading up to the event, we had the chance to speak to both Nikhil Chinapa & Emma Reed – Head of Men’s Wear a…, and they both gave their own perspectives on the clothing line & the secret gig. However, both […]