Sitting in the ArcelorMittal offices in Berkeley Square, a marble and glass maze from where her father-in-law and husband run their business empire, she is adamant that rescuing Escada is no vanity project. 'This is not a short-term proposition for me. I feel a great responsibility, first to the 2,000 staff, and also to the brand, its heritage and its history.'
When it was put up for sale by the administrators, the Munich-based label attracted a huge amount of interest, with up to ten suitors making it to the second round of bidding. In winning the auction, for an estimated €100 million, including the company's debts, Megha saw off many established bidders. Among them was Escada scion Sven Ley and his glamorous British banker wife Zoe Appleyard. (To deepen the blow, Appleyard and Ley claimed to be friendly with the Mittals, both families having homes in St Moritz.) So how did a woman with minimal experience of luxury fashion pull off this coup? 'I was very committed from the start,' she explains. 'My goal is to bring Escada back to its days of glory and to make it have a significance and relevance again.' Megha promised to invest heavily in the label and, unlike Ley, said she would back the plans of the current management, led by chief exec-utive Bruno Sälzer. On learning that she had triumphed, some of the staff in Escada's Munich headquarters apparently wept for joy.
Today, dressed in a knee-length shift from the A/W 2010 collection (she only wears Escada and spent her own money filling her wardrobe with the label directly after the acquisition), it is hard to imagine a better ambassador for the brand. With her discreet diamond stud earrings, French manicure and glossy, raven blow-dry, Megha looks ravishingly polished. But even if she is the living embodiment of the ideal Escada customer, turning around the brand will not be easy.
Escada was founded in 1976 by Sven Ley's father Wolfgang and his late mother Margaretha, a former model who was the chief designer until her death in 1992. Named after a racehorse, Escada soon proved itself a winner, with Margaretha's colourful and intricate designs receiving critical acclaim and gaining devoted fans such as Brooke Shields, Demi Moore and Jerry Hall. It also became one of the most popular labels on the red carpet: 'Escada's history, heritage and DNA is steeped in glamour. Kim Basinger got an Oscar in Escada a few years ago [1998]; we always dress people for the BAFTAs and the Oscars,' says Megha.
But in recent years the label had gone into decline and Wolfgang Ley was forced out in 2006. Sliding sales and a rapidly revolving boardroom door led to mounting losses, with the company going €70 million into the red for 2007/2008. After bond holders rejected Sälzer's attempt to restructure its debts in August 2009, the company was forced to file for bankruptcy protection. Only a month earlier, it had unveiled its S/S 2010 collection at Berlin Fashion Week, with Diane Kruger in the front row. For even as the label struggled, Escada retained its red-carpet appeal, with Katie Holmes, Helen Mirren and Hilary Swank all remaining devotees.
Megha believes the brand needs to broaden its appeal in order to flourish, and wants to focus on 'key pieces' rather than imagining that her customers will buy top-to-toe Escada. Flicking through the lookbooks for S/S 2011, she effuses at every page. Her voice is deep and rich, her well-spoken accent betraying her privileged Indian childhood. 'With Escada's main line, the essence is elegance, glamour and femininity. We wanted to keep that essence but modernise the collection. So it's less formal, more relaxed. The cut is sharper, a little bit more masculine. The collection is more minimal, we've done away with a lot of the fussy detailing. Before, in a jacket, women wanted something more constructed, now they want softer tailoring. And now we have leather and a jumpsuit.' The clothes certainly have a younger vibe, with none of the stuffy ladies-who-lunch approach of the old regime.
One of Megha's earliest moves was to bring in the Scottish designer Jonathan Saunders to create a capsule collection for the second line, Escada Sport. The 20-piece collection, which includes handbags, will be in stores in October. Like Escada, Saunders, who will unveil his eponymous label's A/W 2011 collection at London Fashion Week tomorrow evening, is renowned for his use of colour. 'His aesthetic resonates with ours,' Megha says of the collaboration. 'There's a lot of colour in his collection, a lot of soft tailoring, it's very chic but also easy to wear; a good fit for what we are trying to do with Escada Sport.' Saunders describes his designs for Escada as 'colourful, feminine but [with] a youthful energy. Easy, smart day dresses, pleated skirts teamed with sweaters [and] blocking vibrant colours with playful, graphic prints.'
Under her watch, too, Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli (Leonardo DiCaprio's on-off squeeze) has been made the face of Escada's fragrance. Refaeli was in the front row of Escada Sport's show at Berlin Fashion Week last month, where she was introduced to Megha. 'She embodies youth and energy. All the right qualities that we want to
associate with Escada.'
While Megha's role is pri-marily financial - she sits on the board and is a brand ambassador for the fashion house - the clothing industry is in her blood. She grew up in Hyderabad where her parents have a large textiles business, making everything from cotton yarn to the finished garment. 'India has a great heritage for textiles, and I grew up in that atmosphere. We always had beaders and fabric advisors coming in and out of my mum's door.' She even worked for a short time at the family business before she married.
Megha's formidable drive, ambition and sharp business brain are traits she says she inherited from her parents. Although her family were very wealthy, she describes her childhood as 'simple and happy', with her parents encouraging her to focus on her studies. 'We had a very family-oriented life. My parents were very pro-academia, so life centred around school and the family.'
After attending a 'large, quite academically pushy' private school, Megha went to university in the US, studying finance and strategic management at Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton business school. 'I loved it. It was very international. I think you really got a very good sense of the wider world, especially coming from India. Also, I was alone for the first time, away from family, so it was quite character building. And I met my husband there,' she says, a smile spreading across her face.
She was just 17. Aditya, who was studying business and is a year older than his wife, had spent most of his childhood in Indonesia, where his father had bought a neglected steel plant shortly after Aditya was born. For Aditya it was love at first sight. 'I saw her and fell in love with her,' he has said. 'She saw me and hated me. It took me two years to win her over.' As I recite his quote, Megha's businesslike composure briefly evaporates, and she bursts out laughing. 'I think I was very focused,' she says carefully, before dissolving into high-pitch giggles again. 'I wasn't looking to get sidetracked by distractions.' She pauses. 'My first instinct was wrong and I obviously misjudged him very badly, let's put it that way.' Despite her initial misgivings, she finally realised the pair's similarities: while both are extremely driven, they also both believe that family is the primary concern.
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