Occasionwear has always been Sachin & Babi’s bread and butter, but “day social” is currently the specialty du jour. “This category really speaks to us and it continues to grow. We want to make sure she has something for anything that could come up,” said Babi Ahluwalia from her Manhattan showroom, referring to her clients’ desire for more elaborate outfits outside of traditional black tie.
New menu items this season included an ankle-length chambray number with the kind of intricate cutwork usually associated with an evening gown, textured lamé that blurs the lines between garden fete and beach wedding, and a cinched-waist cotton T-shirt sleeve dress called the Danica, bearing the label’s fan-favorite florals on the skirt. There were also printed ethereal silk chiffon scarves in light green and sky blue hues, hand-finished with beads, that looked like the extension of a strapless dress, offering practical coverage and added interest: “A piece in itself,” as Ahluwalia put it.
Shot on location at Villa Sierra in Palm Springs—aka ‘the pink door house’—the lookbook is an ode to Slim Aarons’s imagery and simpler times. “We are always drawn to the clarity of classic silhouettes, which feel emotionally familiar and timeless,” Ahluwalia said. “Glamour in the mid-century was refined and elegant. Luxury never seemed overstated.” Luxury, for this husband-and-wife team, has always been in the small and intricate details, anyway. (As a completely vertical business, all artisanal embellishments and embroidery—their original claim to fame—are executed at factories they own and operate.) And luxury is also in the touchpoint they’re now able to offer their customers, who come to visit their remodeled atelier five days a week, with a clear idea of what they’re in need of.
“We’ve been doing this for a while now,” Ahluwalia noted—modestly, given that they’ve been in the game since meeting as FIT students in the mid 1990s. “We’re still evolving, in order to delight. Fashion, to me, is when someone spends their honest dollars and I get a DM from them saying, ‘Babi, I had no idea I could look this way.’ That’s when I know I’ve done my job right.”
