During her last visit to Dubai in March, Gauri Khan was happy to take a step back and let her business partner and best friend Sussanne Roshan do all the talking. But on Wednesday at the Oberoi Hotel, Khan, wife of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan was calling the shots.
In town to speak about her collaboration with Dubai-based design company The First Ferry, the 43-year-old fashionista may soon become an UAE fixture as she gets down to designing homes, yachts, clubs and restaurants in this region.
“My passion is to create and transform a small or a large space ... I want the end product to be beautiful. From tables to chandeliers to hotels, we will be working on it. It’s just the beginning,” said Khan.
It’s no secret that Khan ventured into interior design for the love of that craft. She realised that she had an eye for it when she began doing up her Mumbai sea-facing mansion a decade ago.
“It’s not a job for me. This is what I love doing. Designing comes easy and quickly to me. I don’t need to spend hours to complete an X amount of work for me. I feel designing is in me,” said Khan.
And she’s willing to go the whole yard for it. Khan tells us that she celebrated her surrogate son AbRam’s first birthday party on Tuesday night before heading to Dubai.
“How can I leave him on his birthday?,” said Khan with a laugh.
Khan, who comes across as a reluctant star-wife who prefers to walk in the shadow of her superstar husband, has recently been vocal about her interests. In 2012, Khan launched her own line of furniture in partnership with Roshan’s home store in Mumbai, The Charcoal Project. Her Dubai partnership follows her tie-up with Roshan’s bespoke villa project, called Naira, in Goa.
As founder of The First Ferry Prateek Chaudhry, puts it: “Gauri has a personal style which she has developed over the years — a style that is as real as her and very innate to her being. This sophistication is further seen in her designs irrespective of the medium she chooses to express it in. Gauri Khan for The First Ferry brand has been conceived to cater to the global audience.”
Read our full interview with Khan soon.
