PIONEER | SEEMA
Winning the Creative Stakes Payal Kapoor has made her name and fortune in interior design SWARNENDU BISWAS
P
ayal Kapoor shot to limelight in India in the mid-90s when she designed the Palace on Wheels, the most famous luxury train in India. The Delhi-based Payal’s road to that kind of heady success began with her introduction to professional interior designing in 1987 at Manasara, a Delhi-based reputed firm that she joined after earning her diploma in interior design at the Polytechnic for Women in New Delhi. “Initially, it was not my love for interior designing but the prospect of having a decent and quickearning option that drove me to choose interior design as my career,” Payal said. But while studying, she fell in love with the immense potential for creativity in interior design. Headed by Rina Ripjit Singh, a dynamic leader,
16 | SEEMA.COM | AUGUST 2022
Manasara was a consultant firm on several projects. Payal wholeheartedly acknowledges that influence on her career, even describing Rina as her mentor. INITIAL GROUNDING The training the young Payal received under her mentor helped shape her identity as an interior designer of repute. “I knew the basics of interior designing, but she taught me from scratch how to apply those design principles in real world situations amidst a thousand constraints. She taught me the nuances of handling interpersonal relations, which are also no less important than your designing expertise for successfully running an interior design business,” Payal said as we sipped coffee and munched on dry fruits in her aesthetically decorated study.
