WHEN Abhijeet Khanna started RISA, one of his biggest concerns was that people would compare his work to Manish Arora's. Not surprising, given that prior to founding RISA, Khanna spent four years working for the famed Indian designer.

'I was so worried that people would say that I was a replica of Manish,' he recalls. 'In many ways, that really stifled my creativity in the beginning. Thankfully, that's all in the past now. Yes, there are similarities - I wouldn't have worked for him for so long if I didn't like his work - but if you look properly, you'll find that our work is actually very different.'

While it is true that both like to use bright colour and embroidery in their work, that is pretty much where the similarities end. Khanna's most recent collection, for example, uses colour as an accent to showcase textiles produced in-house at his atelier, rather than as a primary focus, as tends to be the case with Arora.

Khanna's ability to manipulate colour with subtlety and skill are traits that will endear his work to a more international market. Already, in Italy, he is championed by ex-model turned designer Maria Buccellati. RISA is also sold at Harrods in London and at Isetan in Tokyo.

Now that he is spending more time in Europe, Khanna has learnt to adopt more modern silhouettes which he then fashions out of his outstanding fabrics.

'One of the main problems that I had when I used to spend most of my time in Delhi was that I was very insulated. It was as though I was designing in a well, and didn't know what other people wanted,' he says. 'Now, I spend most of my time travelling and only about a third of the year in India. India is still my home, of course, but my travels overseas have really helped to open my eyes to new ideas and that growth has been reflected in my work through the years.'

>> Ek Thongprasert

This article was first published in The Business Times.