They have three “holidays” coming up in the next three weeks. That includes shifting their Goa store, trips to the Kochi-Muziris Biennale and Morocco and a birthday celebration. In between, “the bikini boys of India”, Narresh Kukreja and Shivan Bhatiya, took out time to chat with t2 on what has been quite a year. Though they have long evolved into a more holistic lifestyle brand, empowering women with body positivity remains their biggest contribution. Their milestone 15th year saw them brave a storm when their anniversary show in Gulmarg drew criticism for being held during Ramzan. In hindsight, it was a lesson learnt, they say. They shared it with t2. Excerpts.
This year has been a busy one for the brand…
Narresh: Shivan and I were sitting the other day, and Shivan was just going through his phone, and he was counting; we’ve taken 80 flights in 36 cities in the year so far. The year’s flown by, and so much has happened and so much is going on, and yeah, just gratitude and I guess more to come.
Did you actually plan how you’d commemorate the journey of 15 years?
Narresh: I think the year began with just intuitively wanting everyone to know that this is our 15th year in the industry, and I think it is with that intent, we planned to do our 15th anniversary show, and it did go all out, I think in a completely unexpected way. It did drive the message (laughs) of 15 years, and it reached the corners of the world.
I think the journey has been unpredictable, but I think the result has been pretty intentful. Those are the mixed feelings, actually.
You were quite Zen about the Gulmarg row, but what did it teach you?
Narresh: I think it teaches us that no matter with what creative and Zen intent you create things and put out in the world, sometimes you still have to see it from a worldly perspective and see if, unintentionally, you’re causing any discomfort to anyone. That was something that we learnt in the process, and hence the apology that if we’ve made anybody feel bad, that really wasn’t our intention. We’re a holiday brand and we’re presenting a holiday collection in a very logical holiday location, and that’s really what it was truly. This was our 15th anniversary show, it was a ski show, and with India blessed with snow slopes up in the north, why go anywhere else in the world when we have it all? I guess, sometimes you don’t see so many angles and so many views. It was a short lesson in that, but overall, it’s been a very good year.
Tell us about the inspirations for the Ski & Apres Ski collection…
Narresh: The Ski & Apres Ski collection has our heart. I cannot wait to release it. We revisited our signature prints, our iconic prints and twisted them again because it was our 15th anniversary show.
When you actually consciously decided to develop a Couture Series, what were the kind of things that you wanted to experiment with that you probably don’t get to do in your regular line, which is very couture too?
Narresh: Couture is a complete indulgence of beauty and texture. I think this is where our vision and mastery of knits really come alive. Being a swimwear brand, I think knits are something that’s our second skin, of texture, that’s what we play with.
In India, when it comes to couture, nobody has that knits language the way we do because everybody majorly plays with woven fabrics, whether it’s silk as a base or cotton as a base, but we make all our textiles, so we hand-knit our silk knits, we hand-knit cotton knits. We do all our base textiles for couture.
This time around, couture also had overlaying of prints, something that we’ve never done before. We took inspiration from Henri Matisse’s paintings and his works. It was a telescope into the future as to how we see now, our next steps or how we are evolving as a brand.
Among many things, I think medium-wise, it’s not about just the print and the surface. It’s a lot more three-dimensional. So, what this three-dimensionality looks like in terms of textiles and skein work and embroideries that becomes a whole new medium to figure.
Second is the occasion changes. I think suddenly from holiday it changes to celebration. So, then you’re asking who are you dressing her for and what are you dressing her for? I think that starts to have a lot more resonance with couture.
The other thing that plays a lot in our minds is menswear. I think couture and menswear have long been trapped in the shackles of just a sherwani and a bandhgala, the Indian menswear. Shivan and I have really been wanting to take menswear out of the closet when it comes to couture. And men’s couture coming from India can be so much more than bandhgala and sherwani.
And again, appropriating it as to, you know, how and where can a regular Indian man wear it? We’re both men ourselves. So, we are always trying to imagine, okay, where will we wear this? And let me see if Shivan has something to add also.
Shivan: I mean, I feel like it’s strange, but like if you see mostly what’s happening in the industry at the minute, it’s very monotone. Those rose golds and the beiges and the ecrus and the whites that have taken huge precedence. And we were like, what happened to the Indian colour palette? Like it needs to be out there.
So that’s another thing besides the three-dimensionality of how we see couture, we also see them in technicolour. I feel like that’s something that is primarily lacking. We are a very colourful nation. We celebrate colour to the hilt. I feel like there’s a lot of monotone that took precedence. And I feel like that also needs to be changed in the larger scheme of things.
Do you like what’s happening right now in Indian fashion, in general?
Shivan: You know what, when I see it, I feel like kudos to Indian couturiers, I feel like a lot of them have also come at par and probably better than a lot of international ones. Internationally, colour has never been a big precedence in general, by and large. So, when you see that tone-on-tone colour palette, our workmanship is unparalleled. Everything is done here anyway, for the Parisian brands and Italian ones. Everything is done here. So, I feel like that’s one good thing that we’re at, where we’re at. I feel like we’re missing the punch to some extent. And I feel like that’s what we bring on board.
Narresh: I think that’s very nicely said. What’s happening right now just positions India at par with the world because this monotonic and a very neutral and a pastel colour palette is a very European colour palette. So, it’s India’s quest to say that you can see us with the same international eyes the way you see the West.
But I think in this process, while we mastered that, the thing that is lacking is what about our roots! I mean, if we’re a technicolour nation, how do you present technicolour from an international perspective? I think when you see it from that lens, then you see a visual language missing in the Indian couture space. And I feel like, because colour is our strength, that comes very easily to us to present an aesthetic that is a technicolour India, but with the restraint of an international eye, because there’s only that much colour balancing that the international aesthetic can take.
And I feel like that’s really something that we master… the restraint with technicolour. Hence, the aesthetic is unique.
Do you think there’s a middle ground where a creative person can reach where there is a spark of originality, as well as it is saleable?
Narresh: If anything, that is the job of a fashion designer, but then how do you push the boundary and yet you survive the season. And the purpose of the whole industry is in this balance that you push the society as to how it dresses, and you push them for aesthetics, push them to their own potential, but at the same time, you survive the season, and you make sales in that season. If you get too artistic, nobody buys, you don’t survive the season, and if you start to make what sold last season, you start to lose the relevance of the brand. So, it is a tightrope, and that’s why you see that not all brands remain hot every season. That is the reason of revival and resurrection and death of brands continuously in the fashion cycle. But there are some brands who have the courage of constantly reinventing themselves and going back to the drawing table from a fresh perspective every season. They’ll always be organically and editorially the talk of the season because they’re reinventing themselves every time.
I think in the West also we have plenty of examples. You look at someone like Chanel that has been running with the status quo formula for a very long time, and you know under the guise of a heritage brand producing the same collections year after year. Then you have someone like a Prada that fully reinvents itself every time, and it has nothing to do with what they did last season. So that’s really the wide spectrum in which fashion should play. Unfortunately, in India, most of the Indian designer brands position themselves on the heritage side, because of this big maharaja hangover of India and Indian aesthetic. Everybody sees themselves as traditional Indian brands, but what about the other side of the spectrum? We are the youngest country in the world, so if we’re not in contemporising and modernising what it means to be Indian aesthetic in the current days, then you’re fully letting go of the other spectrum. I think that’s where we really position ourselves, that you can sell a sari, a bathing suit, a dress, but your language doesn’t have to be the maharaja India. It can be the India today, and it can be dipped in contemporariness, and it doesn’t have to scream India because you are Indian and that comes out anyway.
What are we doing wrong?
Narresh: I think what we’re doing wrong is that we’re not letting the young blood take centre stage. They should know when it’s the right time to hand the reins to someone younger and let the freshness come in. I think there is a lot of insecurity in letting the reins go, and they don’t realise, but that’s what’s causing more long-term harm than short-term sales by just sticking to what’s worked in the past. I hope all Indian brands actually learn this without a lot of damage, that you have to learn to give the baton to the next generation, you know, and let them reinvent.
Do you think we are chasing the world, or is the world chasing us? Also, do you think India is ready for this momentum?
Shivan: It’s inevitable at the moment because let’s face it, I’m just talking statistically, the world’s population is declining all across, except in India. Of course, here also, it’s relatively slowing down, but where will this population go? They will have to take over the world in some way or the other.
We will find a means to dictate what truly India is, and everybody will have no choice but to see us as the next true winners. Yes, we can keep fighting about many small issues that we see, but nobody can deny the strength with which the country is going ahead, and I think that will become the winning force, and there will be many people who will have voices, and people will come of age, and they will talk about who they truly are.
Narresh: I think we have to understand that whether the world likes to accept us or not, the future is already here, and the future of consumption is in India, the future for production and manufacturing is in India. So, like you can hold this story from both sides, but on either side, it’s only India and Indians. Caught in the middle are our Europeans and Americans, and I feel like whether they source from India or they sell to India, they cannot ignore India, and that’s the reality of today. As we speak, the consumption of luxury in Europe is only declining, and the consumption of luxury in the East is only rising. So, you can do this math either way, but you cannot ignore the luxury brands emerging out of India and their relevance in global fashion.
Are more and more people wearing India-made brands in India?
Narresh: Hundred per cent. I think Indians, whether it’s millennials or Gen Zs, they have a very flat way of looking at the world — it’s a very democratic way of looking at the world. I don’t think they look at the world from the perspective of I should favour it because it’s not made in India or made in India. They see it for the value that it adds to their life. If the brand and the product is adding value to their life, to their wardrobe, they pick it up. I think it’s fully become a value-driven economy and a design-driven economy.
Your home store has been a dream...
Narresh: That was a really big thing because it’s been in the making for the last two years, the category itself, and of course, with the formal launch of the home store, that just physically got manifested.
We’ve been so busy always, being outside of home, that when in Covid we had no choice but to be at home, both of us discovered the love of being at home. It was a big revelation that ‘Oh my god, this is so nice to be at home’, that we were always running away from you know, for the good 12-13 years of our lives. That piggybacked on Shivan’s love for hosting at home. He’s a Taurean, a homebody. He loves all the luxuries and comforts of being at home, and because he loves hosting, what actually ended up happening was that that ended up becoming the soul of Shivan & Narresh Homes.
We started with dining table because that’s where we were hosting most, and it was seeing a lot of traction on my stories and then through the brand stories — the textiles on the table that we were putting, and the napkins. It started with that, and then it moved on to wallpapers and wall art and then eventually bedsheets and cushions. We did crockery and cutlery, and then we suddenly realised, there are so many categories, we need to have a store, and then Chanakya happened. It’s been a whirlwind, and I think those are some of the best business decisions because you take them so from the heart that then no matter what the journey is, you always have the passion to fight it out.
The brand also forayed into eyewear…
Narresh: We’ve been working on this for about two years. It’s such a technical product, a lot of these things you’re not able to do in India because we don’t have the right manufacturing for these little units. You know, when you want to do platinum screws and when you want to make sure the nose pads are a certain way, that they’re very comfortable. We’re all about holidays, and eyewear is such a natural thing to do. Our acetate comes from Italy, the nose pads and screws come from Hong Kong, because different parts of the world make different master materials.
And I think the collaboration with The Monk was also very helpful in that, because of course, they have been in the eyewear business longer than us. I think The Monk also had the same Zen philosophy that we believe in, which is just always doing something for the bigger community. They constantly support a lot of causes, and we just had that instant connect that you’re creating a product beyond just consumerism.
What are the other categories which you haven’t touched?
Narresh: Fine jewellery. It’s Shivan’s first love.
Shivan: I’ve been thinking about it for a very long time, but it’s something that needs a lot more strategic planning. I want to do very wearable pieces, but Narresh is like no we need to push the boundary, and this is what he does to me!
I like to wear simple jewellery. Aesthetics will definitely play a big role eventually. We will have interesting pieces. We do fashion jewellery, and fashion jewellery is bold, and even if you do fine, it’ll have that boldness to it, in a more contemporary way.
How is the partnership going now?
Shivan: It’s better than ever. It’s even more harmonious than it was. I mean, conflicts are always healthy, but it seems we are more in the space of accepting each other’s point of view, and now there is less friction than there used to be.
Narresh: I think both of us are such unique and distinct personalities that we’ve learned our way by only fighting for what we stand for, design-wise, with each other. And Shivan & Narresh was always a result of this fight of whose point of view we are putting forward. Even though it has always been an amalgamation, but to reach that point of amalgamation, the design process was always like heated. So that heat is not there now. There’s a lot of acceptance, and there is a lot of patience to hear the other person, and then you let the point of view proceed, which is actually most contributory to the world we live in.
Do you think that because your foundation is art, it has kept the brand very fresh?
Shivan: Travel and art really make up the brand, and it’s both our eyes looking at different things, coming to the table and putting it together has been a big contributing factor as to how we think and how we put the idea of a collection together.
Narresh: I think it just gives you a very unique perspective of your first bouncing ground, and then where you take the collection from there, of course, becomes your language and your aesthetic in perspective. But that first spring ground, if that is based on or is an original point of view, which could come from a location, destination or an artist, some works that you discovered while travelling, that I think just sets the precedent of doing something unique.