Youth Incorporated Magazine

Designer and National Institute of Design (NID) faculty, Anuj Sharma, is a master of metamorphosis. With just a humble piece of fabric, he gives you the power to create and experiment with limitless options. With a simple shift of a loop and button, you can transform a long summer dress to a short strappy evening number. In an age of mass production and cloning, it is a luxury to derive creative joy and satisfaction from a piece of fabric.
Anuj tells us how his design range Button Masala came to be; “During the Lakme Fashion Week where I showed Button Masala, I got feedback from models that it was difficult for them to even think of shifting a button here and there. They thought it only a designer could change the designs that easily. I felt that I needed to work further on not just improving the technique but pushing people to be designers themselves.” That’s the story of Button Masala in its present avatar.
Anuj defines design in his own simple yet finite way. “Design as I see it is a way of spreading joy. It means experiencing every minute of life and enjoying it. It means sharing the stories of your experiments with everyone truthfully. Any lies or make up will kill the essence of sharing. I want my work to make everyone feel capable of experiencing design not just by ‘buying’, but by ‘doing’. Design need not be restricted to a few hands. It needs to be in everybody’s minds and needs to be experienced by every hand.”
So what’s next for Anuj and Button Masala? “A little less of fashion and more of passion. I think I shall go on a search for it,” says Anuj in his brutally honest, yet totally loveable style.

Volume 1 Issue 5