When she was in school and taking an interest in colours and clothes, Tiya Neil Karikkassery may not have realised she’d one day end up an entrepreneur like her mother. It was fine arts she learned in college and her designing was limited to her own clothes and jewellery. And then she grew up, got married and became a mother of two girls. She began designing clothes for her little girls and these started getting noticed. More people wanted designs like those. Tiya ended up running an online store. And then she joined two other women to put together a boutique in Panampilly Nagar. A year later, their pictures are in the media, walking with four young actresses, at the Kerala Fashion League, held in Kochi earlier this month.
“It was a segment that had the theme of Navaratna,” Tiya says. Models walked in wearing bridal collections. Bhama, Miya George, Sija Rose and Apoorva Bose became the showstoppers, turning up in white. The three designers walked with them wearing black. “When the online store became a success, I needed help, I needed partners.” That’s how two Marias joined her — Maria Akshay Mattathil, her sister-in-law and Maria Paul Kandamkulathil, her cousin. “What works for us is we often have the same taste, and even if one of us doesn’t agree with a certain design, we change everything and start all over. There is no ego.” It’s only because she deals with customers that Tiya gets more noticed, she adds. Maria Akshay looks after production, and Maria Paul, after accounts.
“Maria Paul is the luckiest among us in one way, because she got to design her own wedding dress. The other Maria and I had already been married by the time we started,” Tiya laughs. In a year they have designed for quite a few celebrities including Nazriya, Pearly, Rinna — wife of Nivin Pauly, Priya — wife of Kunchacko Boban, Padmaja Venugopal, and others. “I guess it is in our blood.
My mother Asha Sebastian has been designing jewellery for years. I am doing this, and my five-year-old daughter is already showing interest!”
