Photography by Alise O'Brien
For much of each week, Anjali Kamra is far from home, traveling to cities around the country for Rungolee, the fashion design company that she founded in 2007. Her personal appearances at trunk shows—staged in private residences, at country clubs and galleries—offer women the opportunity to connect the clothes they buy with the designer who creates them. On the morning of our interview, Kamra has recently returned from a six-day, three-city tour of the East Coast, where she’s introducing the company’s fall/winter collection to longtime clients who scoop up the line’s trademark blouses and to newcomers, who learn about the brand for the first time. According to Kamra, business is booming! “My full-length, floral dress has been a best-seller. It’s flying off the shelves,” she says. “Women are wearing floral to galas. It’s not just black anymore, and I love that. I think it’s so much more interesting.”
Upstairs in the design studio, her team processes garments as they arrive from India, where beautiful, unusual fabrics are sourced and each piece is made, and packaging shipments to be mailed out to clients across the U.S. Kamra, in a rare moment of idleness, soaks in the quiet. “While I love traveling the globe,” she says,“it’s lovely to come home to this house that my husband and I have put so much love and energy into making our own.”
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Photography by Alise O'Brien
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Photography by Alise O'Brien
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Photography by Alise O'Brien
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Photography by Alise O'Brien
In 2008, Kamra, her husband, Atul, and their two children (now adults and living on the East Coast) moved to St. Louis. The couple had just completed a full remodel of a historic house in Richmond, Virginia, when they learned that Atul was being transferred to St. Louis. “I love old homes, but I like to make them my own,” she says. “I walked into this foyer for the first time, with the winding staircase and the pear tree in full bloom, and fell in love.” She was also drawn to the U-shape of the house—and its windows looking out onto the courtyard, a reminder of the traditional Indian homes of her youth. Kamra is originally from Kolkata, the cultural capital of India, and she says it’s in her fiber to mix colors, genres, and designers. “I like that my house doesn’t follow rules,” she says.
As the couple considered their priorities for the new house—entertaining, their children’s evolving needs, and Kamra’s growing business—they thought quite a bit about flow, opening up the house to light, and making it easy to have both intimate conversations and large group gatherings. One of Kamra’s favorite changes is the partial opening in the wall between the bar in the family room and the entry, which allows party guests to enter from the outside and grab a drink or food. “I love that feeling of indoor/outdoor living,” says Kamra. “Even though St. Louis isn’t always conducive to outdoor living, that’s what we wanted to create.” The couple replaced the first-floor windows with custom, floor-to-ceiling windows that provide an easy pass-through to the backyard and pool.
Whether she’s decorating her house or designing a dress, Kamra says the intention is always to create something “unique, a little bit irreverent, and informal.”
Her philosophy echoes throughout the house, as clean modern lines meet antiques, vintage textile prints, and billowing window dressings designed by Kamra, made in India, and folded into suitcases for the trip back home. In the foyer, harmony is attained in a blend of unexpected elements. Kamra pairs an 18th-century French settee, still covered in its original dusty-gold fabric, with a geometric glass table. The settee and table sit atop a red Persian rug, layered with a sheepskin, that Kamra bought at a local estate sale. An antique switchboard hangs on a nearby wall, salvaged with the help of her doorman from a street in New York. “I saw it and decided that it was the most beautiful piece from a bygone era,” she says.
Photography by Alise O'Brien
The surprising combinations continue in the living room with two chinoiserie chairs and silk, seagrass-colored drapes that contrast with a leather Barcelona-style bench and a gray velvet Jonathan Adler sofa. Two mirrored tables from Target, a crystal light fixture from Sweden, a pair of Anglo-Indian tables, and a vintage Lucite cocktail table from Argentina add to the room’s worldly aesthetic without being too showy. Art is a passion that the couple shares, and they’ve been collecting contemporary works since the time they lived in Virginia. The piece hanging above the fireplace is by Isabel Bigelow. “It literally glows at night when you turn the lights on it,” says Kamra. On an adjacent wall a large-scale painting, a love letter written in Urdu, is by Iranian artist Farhad Moshiri. The room’s coffee table is styled with design books and two of Kamra’s most beloved objects: a pair of antique Nepalese headpieces rendered in turquoise, coral, and silver. “As you can see,” she says, “I like mixing it up!”
And she loves the hunt, she adds as we move into the enveloping ivory walls of the dining room. When Kamra is in town for a trunk show, she likes to host them at home and the dining room table—an elegant glass piece from South Jefferson Mid Century Modern—brims with folded cotton shorts and easy-to-wear embroidered tops. Rolling garment racks are used around the room to show breezy, light dresses and skirts. “You see that credenza?” Kamra asks. “I bought it from South Jefferson and had it lacquered to match the color of the walls so that it fades into the room. It has all the original hardware.” The designer also collects antique silver; she especially loves antique silver teapots. A St. Louis friend, restaurateur Ben Poremba, introduced Kamra to Quintessential, where she frequently finds statement pieces, like the silver tray that sits on top of the credenza.
We walk into a small elevator off of the kitchen and close the gated door. “In hindsight, this was one of the best things we did,” she says. “It makes transporting clothes between floors so easy.”
“Hi guys!” exclaims Kamra, greeting her team inside the second-floor design studio. “I’m just showing off the space.”
She’s given the room her personal touch. A fusion of Philippe Starck chairs, a vintage Lucite table, and two Asher Penn prints featuring the model Kate Moss speak to her range of passions. “We gutted the space. We raised the ceiling, and added the studio with a bath and closet,” she says. “My husband is good with spatial planning, and I’m really good with textures and fabrics, so it’s a good match.”
Today, Kamra has promised herself that she’ll start designing the spring 2019 collection, but she also needs to meet with her social media coordinator and help the team mail out the day’s packages. “Every day there’s a shipment from DHL,” she says, pulling a leopard-print tuxedo blouse out of a box.
“This is done by the guy who does all of the embroidery for Gucci,” she says. “Isn’t it beautiful? You can instantly dress it up or wear it scruffy with blue jeans.”
Back downstairs we walk through the kitchen. With a flick of her finger, Kamra slides open a large marble backsplash to reveal a collection of spices and lentils: “When it’s closed, you don’t know it’s there. But when you open it up, it’s totally practical. Everything is so easy to access.” The countertops were chosen to make entertaining easy. With the stainless steel, says Kamra, “you don’t have to worry about your counters.” She flips a wall switch to illuminate a pair of acrylic Ligne Roset sconces. They project a trompe l’oeil effect on the wall. Kamra smiles. “I like a little bit of humor and fun in my design.”
And, of course, beauty and meaning. In a corner of the room, a very tall frangipiani tree, a gift from a neighbor, catches my eye. “I grew up with these trees in India,” says Kamra. Under her care, it has grown so tall that it won’t likely fit inside the house next winter. But she’s planted a smaller tree using a branch from the original.
“I’d say my husband is a much better gardener than I am, but nothing makes me happier than coming home from my travels and seeing how my little plants are doing,” she says. She picks a delicate ivory-blush bloom to show me.
“Smell this,” she says.
“It’s like perfume,” I reply.
“It’s my lucky flower,” says the designer. “It’s inspired collections. I just love the colors.”
