A self taught painter and trained designer from NIFT, Nida’s work has earned her the tile ‘Queen of Indian Kitsch’ in the media. Over the years, she’s worked with big names like Hemant Trivedi, Manish Malhotra, Aki Narula and Ranna Gill from whom she’s learnt that perfection and persistence are key to success.

Nida’s greatest inspiration for her work emerges from a place with which you and I come in contact every day. It is the Indian street that echoes through most of her work. For Nida, it all began with a walk, exploring the nooks and crannies of an urban village. What caught her attention and inflamed her imagination was an ordinary chai stall.

She describes her moment of transformation, “The aluminium kettle was on the boil on a gas stove, the chaiwala was pouring chai into glasses, people were huddled around the stove, warming their hands, exchanging banter about their lives and sipping on the humble elixir.” Explaining this preoccupation, she says, “Humble kettle. Humble stove. Humble chai glasses, and humble chai. All of this absolutely mundane to any passerby – but I think that moment was one of transformation for me. I cannot put a finger on how or why, but I found myself in a state of hypnosis, fanatically plunging into my new design collection for autumn winter 2009-2010 and I called it High on Chai.”

High on Chai was the first significant milestone in Nida’s career. She was on the brink of something phenomenal. Excited at having found something so unique, she broke away from all the set rules and did something that no one in the history of Indian fashion had ever done before. She brought real chaiwalas, churiwalis and balloon walas onto the high fashion runway! She found her real inspiration; she discovered what moved her.

Gaga over Nida
Each fashion line under the Nida Mahmood label is a milestone towards something bigger and better. It is a journey of self discovery that has unravelled secrets about herself that she didn’t know existed.

For Nida, the creative process is an all pervasive experience which engulfs her. She lives the concept completely – eating, breathing and thinking it. “I even have beautiful path-breaking ideas in my dreams. It is quite interesting how I visualise so much in my sleep because my mind is drenched with the thoughts. I find myself waking up and jotting down notes. Some of my very big ideas in the past have taken shape this way,” she says.

Her most recent collection, 'The Great Indian Bohemian Tamasha' has quite literally been a shining success. Amongst the collection were two dresses, each embellished with around 1,000 LED lights. A risqué proposition fashion-wise, but Nida has never been one to shy away from a challenge. And boy, did it pay off. She caught the attention of the poster-child of edgy fashion – Lady Gaga. Nida says it’s a surreal feeling, especially since while designing these dresses she thought wasthat no one, but Lady Gaga should be wearing them.

New India Bioscope Co
Perhaps her most blatant expression of Indian kitsch born of the street is the venture founded by Nida and Raul Chandra in 2009 called the New India Bioscope Co. The quirks, vibrancy, drama and multi-layered stories ensconced in the various corners of the country find a voice in the graphics, furniture, bags, shoes and other accessories designed by the duo. Self-confessed ‘street-o-holics’, Nida and Raul’s bioscope is a magic box through which they project their own technicolor stories.

Their latest creation was the art installation for Absolut vodka. The Absolut Mode installation was a coming together of high fashion on the runway and fashion in a humble tailor-shop.

Inside the artist’s mind
Today she has evolved into an artist with an insatiable and ever expanding wanderlust for exploring new ideas. An artist who challenges what can exist, eventually creating tangible forms out of just a handful of ideas but with a vision leading to something dynamic that will create history along the way.

“The feeling of growth and the edge of chaos inspires me. When one finds the purpose of one's life, the journey becomes more relevant than the destination. Success ceases to matter. Growth becomes paramount. The humility of the witness that is the artist, takes over the arrogance of the creator,” says the talented designer.

Nida admits that she’s a crazy workaholic. She works round the clock, but only because none of it seems like work to her. There’s a lot on her plate right now – a 10 minute film on street theatre, dabbling in video art and working on projects she’d prefer to stay mum about right now. But coming from a firebrand who is intent on redefining the rules, you can be sure you won’t be disappointed.

“Connecting to the inner source takes you on a flight in the clouds and gives you perspective. These and so many other such thoughts swim in my head and I question myself. Fresh surge, new zeal, big ideas, bigger dreams. I find myself more drawn to art and the familiar feeling of wanting to break free bobs its head yet again – and pleasantly so,” muses the artist.