Lovebirds brings a study in restraint, clarity, and harmony in Sri Lanka

A medieval sculpture, overlooking the Dedduwa Lake, peers through the expansive frangipani tree, the one with two characteristic branches spreading out side-by-side, as I stand on the upper-level terrace. The gaze shifts instantly to the rolling lawns on the left, the lower terraces in front, natural patina on the wooden bench, stone steps, walls, and railings, with every step I take. It feels like a visual reminder of one of the postcard texts from the Lovebirds’ show invite—“Look In. Look Out.” We are at Lunuganga Estate, visionary Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa’s personal sanctuary and an evolving experiment in Tropical Modernism. A former cinnamon estate during the Dutch era and later a rubber plantation under British rule, the twenty-five-acre land on the banks of the lake in Bentota was reimagined in 1949 by Bawa as a masterclass in landscape architecture.

The garden estate exists as an open dialogue between architecture, ecosystem dynamics, and conservation methods. The collective ideology mirrors Lovebirds’ relationship with clothing through the lens of precision, restraint, and the expanding vocabulary of the modern Indian wardrobe. For the founders and the husband-wife duo, Amrita Khanna and Gursi Singh, the resortwear’26-27 showcase at Lunuganga is deeply personal. “Sri Lanka was the first place we'd been where craft and environment felt completely inseparable. Lovebirds' design language has always aligned with the core tenets of Tropical Modernism: minimalism, the use of local materials and craft, and the ambition to make something deeply contextual that still holds global relevance,” shares Singh. Returning to the country, after a decade of building the brand, and presenting the collection at Lunuganga, allowed the duo to reconnect with the early memories of curiosity and openness, but from a place of greater clarity. “The alignment between our work and Bawa's came through restraint. He believed in doing less, but doing it with absolute clarity, and that philosophy mirrors the way we approach clothing,” he adds.

The runway, set against the scenic backdrop of the lake, features a minimalistic white ramp minus the shebang of a set. The show starts at Bawa’s favourite G&T hour in the evening, maximising the natural light. The meticulously designed 60 looks, across womenswear and menswear, are in harmony with form and function, highlighting the interplay of structural silhouettes, geometrical shapes, and tailored finesse. The brand’s signature minimalism remains intact while adapting to the cultural nuances of the place, in line with Bawa’s design philosophy—on the cumulative knowledge of materials, craft, and respect for community. Khanna and Singh reframe batik, embroidery, handwoven linens, silks, and cottons in resonance with global outlook and local roots: think voluminous skirts, exaggerated shoulders, structural jackets, back-tofront shirts, and sarongs styled over trousers. Batik, being the central craft of the collection, extends to show invitations, sarongs as gifts for the guests, and eight looks as part of the showcase, visualised through crackles, polka dots, and sarong interpretations. The craft technique was developed in collaboration with the design store Paradise Road and the One World Foundation in Sri Lanka. “Lunuganga was never just a beautiful backdrop; Bawa and his world were a genuine inspiration, and we threw ourselves into researching everything around that. Batik emerged naturally from that process. It's such a central and deeply rooted Sri Lankan craft that not to engage with it would have felt like a missed conversation,” Khanna highlights. The collection includes a curated selection of bags of jewellery as an extension to the brand’s impressive line of accessories.

The intention of repositioning resortwear beyond the concept of holiday dressing, often regarded as a fleeting indulgence, comes first and foremost for the designer couple. So, how do restraint, structure, and longevity become the larger narrative in fashion? “A collection only becomes cohesive when you've been stringent about what doesn't belong—when every choice and every detail is there because it needs to be and not because it could be. That discipline is what gives clothing a sense of purpose,” elaborates Singh. The craft elements are integrated in a way that feels structural rather than decorative. “When craft is used as an embellishment, it dates. Whereas when it's embedded in the logic of the piece, it endures,” Khanna adds. 

The Lovebirds’ circle, a recurring theme in the brand’s design vocabulary and a community-driven cultural positioning, resonates with the ideology. In the show notes, the designers describe the brand’s audience as “confident, aware, and uninterested in tradition for the sake of it.” In practical design terms, it translates to encapsulating traditions without reducing craft to either heritage nostalgia or contemporary abstraction. “The wearer we design for is too discerning for that. They can feel the difference between something that was designed around a craft and something where the craft is the design. It means spending a lot more time asking whether a particular textile, embroidery, or print is the right solution for a specific silhouette or proportion, not whether it fits a brief or a trend,” explains Singh, referring to the cross-cultural exchange through batik factored around minimal intervention and more intuition. 

Reflecting on the experience in Sri Lanka, Khanna adds, “When you strip everything back to what's essential, what remains feels inevitable. That clarity is something we want to carry into every collection going forward.” Beyond the clothes themselves, Lunuganga reinforces something Lovebirds believes in: “That integrity, authenticity, and community are non-negotiable. Every time we've thrown ourselves into a new world, a place, a craft, a set of ideas, the work has grown.” The next decade for Lovebirds is about deepening, experimenting, and evolving, “while staying completely true to what we've always stood for,” Singh says objectively.

Images: Lovebirds

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