June 2025 - Magazine - Page 20
O
n 19th June the Brenchley & Matfield Local History Society welcomed
Rukshana Masters back for a second society talk. Following her intriguing story
about her grandmother, who came to England from India and even met Queen
Victoria, this time we learnt about Rukshana’s own life as a fashion designer in
England.
Born in India in 1949, Rukshana befriended a local tailor who made many clothes
for her and her family. This influenced her for the rest of her life and she started to
make her own clothes, without any formal training. She then met a design lecturer
from Reading, Pennsylvania, who invited her to go to the USA to learn how to make
clothes. In 1968 she ended up in New York, where she learnt all about pattern
cutting, types of fabric and samples, but needed to find a job to survive.
Rukshana bluffed her way into getting a job with a prestigious New York fur coat
maker. It was not really what she wanted to do but it was a job and she could learn
from it. This job enabled her to meet some of the rich and famous of New York,
including Sophia Loren, for whom she made a leopard skin coat and hat. Rukshana
also met and made a sheepskin coat, lined in mink, for Jimmy Hendrix. Rukshana
was not all that impressed with working with animal fur and skin but had to be
very matter of fact if she wanted to get by. This was 1968 and people’s attitudes to
animal fur were very different in those days.
Silk patchwork jacket
Rukshana then returned to India, where she set up business as a fashion designer
and maker, even employing the original tailor from her youth. Her boutique was
the first of its kind in that area of India. She then fell in love and married a banker,
who brought her to live in England in 1972. In those days fashion in England was
highly influenced by such people as Mary Quant and Jean Shrimpton.
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Rukshana’s first samples consisted of sari
material that was fashioned into four
summer designs. Around April she boldly
took them straight to Dickens & Jones
in Regent Street in London. Somehow
she was able to have an appointment
with the fashion buyer. Fortunately the
buyer loved her work but Rukhsana did
not realise that all the summer fashion
had been bought in January of that year.
The buyer said she would give her a
“small” order, provided she could fulfill it
completely within three weeks. Rukshana
agreed but the small order turned out to
be twelve dozen each of all four items.
When you are young, keen and hungry,
anything can be achieved and somehow
the order was fulfilled. Only to be advised
