Naeem Khan was getting out of the shower in a Miami hotel room when his wife, Ranjana, started screaming. “She was jumping up and down on the bed,” Khan remembers. “Ranjana knows how long I have desired this. It was a wonderful moment.”
The transformative event unfolding before the couple took place via CNN as they watched Michelle Obama enter last winter’s state dinner for India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wearing a one-of-a-kind gown of Khan’s design. One of seven custom dresses submitted by Khan to the first lady’s stylist, the strapless gown of champagne silk chiffon was accented with sterling-plated sequins in an abstract poppy pattern based on a Warhol painting. “To me, it looks like something out of this world, like liquid gold,” Khan says of the design. “And Michelle Obama has the perfect stature for the dress; she looked like royalty.”
Already a red-carpet favorite, Khan, who worked for Halston before founding his own label and who returned last month to the tents at Bryant Park to show his ready-to-wear collection, says this one event quickly vaulted him into a whole new stratosphere, leading to an avalanche of celebrity requests. “That night, mine was the third-most Googled name in the world, so it really is instant recognition of who you are and what you do,” he says. “I love that it was a moment that put an Indian designer on the fashion map. For me, it was a pride born of two countries.” Bergdorf Goodman, 754 Fifth Ave., 212-753-7300; naeemkhan.com
