From Calcutta’s storied streets to the global stage, Sabyasachi's journey is a testament to India’s enduring sartorial legacy

When Sabyasachi Mukherjee debuted his first collection, Kashgaar Bazaar, at Lakmé Fashion Week in 2002, the event was hardly surrounded by the bated breaths and collective high expectations that now follow the designer. His models made their way down the runway dressed in textiles that celebrated India’s rich and diverse craft traditions,with a nod to the intellectual and poetic reputation of his home city of Calcutta coming via models styled with stacks of books and horn-rimmed glasses. The collection was seamlessly and inextricably both Indian andWestern,and served to announce Mukherjee as one to watch on both Indian and international shores.

A quarter of a century since that debut show, Mukherjee’s eponymous label has scaled the heights of fashion glory, as evidenced by an impressive list of accolades and achievements that includes being the first Indian brand to collaborate with clothing giant H&M, as well as with heavy-hitting global names such as Estée Lauder and Christian Louboutin,and trailblazing his way into being one of the first Indian designers to show at Milan FashionWeek,and recently opened the door to his first American flagship store in Manhattan’s Soho. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the designer has come to embody a de-facto fashion ambassador for India on the global main stage, or that he wears this honorary position with enthusiasm and a sense of pioneership.

It belies the designer’s current starry heights to know that his roots are both humble and deeply embedded into the cultural core of his hometown. Calcutta serves as both an emotional and creative anchor for Mukherjee, and has been a consummate muse for the designer to the extent that it functions as a unifying thread that runs through his sprawling oeuvre. It isn’t just sentimentality and nostalgia that ties Mukherjee to Calcutta, but rather the tension that the city holds within its many juxtapositions. From its now-decaying opulence to its still-overflowing flower markets and its unabashedly greasy underbelly—that hold weight for the designer, who gives credence to the city’s rich and layered intellectual history as being his artistic life force. “Calcutta, a city of patina, where the grandest buildings lie crumbling to the reality of decay,where stories of the rambunctious red-light area of Sonagachi, the sinewy pimps of Kamathipura, the effervescence of marigolds in Mallick Ghat co-exist under the hypnotic and ever-watchful eyes of Goddess Kali, is my ultimate inspiration,” says Mukherjee. It is in this space of contrasts— where luxury meets the raw energy of daily life—that Sabyasachi has forged an empire of Indian craftsmanship.

There is perhaps no greater testament to Mukherjee’s veneration of his roots than the fact that,despite his current position as a global player, the designer resolved to host his seminal 25th anniversary show on the eve of Republic Day in Mumbai via Old Calcutta.The show saw the venue transform into Mukherjee’s hometown, with meticulous attention to every detail of the set. Each of the show’s 150 looks were crafted in West Bengal, and skirted a fine balance between minimalist reserve and maximalist exuberance, as we have come to expect from the designer, and included intricate embroidery mimicking tweed, velvet appliqués layered over faux fur, and filmy Japanese cotton paired with woven Pashmina.“A lot of what you see on the runway isn’t fabric; it’s pure embroidery,” says Mukherjee, perfectly highlighting the sleight of hand and mastery of illusion that have come to define his work and earn him a slew of famous of fans, including Sonam Kapoor Ahuja,Ananya Panday, and Alia Bhatt, all of whom were in attendance for this seminal collection, while long-time muse Deepika Padukone opened the show.

Besides his creative inspirations,the drive to create India’s first truly global fashion brand has long been the wind beneath Mukherjee’s wings. Despite the designer’s splashy Milan Fashion Week debut in 2004 and subsequent move to NewYork FashionWeek in 2006,it has been several years since he has put on a fashion show,choosing instead to debut his collections via social media, to great acclaim. It was an astute move in the face of global popularity, and revealed that Mukherjee, despite the number of years under his belt, still has his finger firmly on the pulse.It’s this knack for making strategically sound decisions that is just as much a part of the designer’s success as his creative prowess.Think back to the designer’s debut bridal collection, Chand Bibi, which dropped in 2007—it became an immediate staple on wedding mood boards and changed the vocabulary when it came to Indian bridal couture,which is perhaps why its echoes continue to be felt to this day, nearly two decades later.

“Over the next 25 years, I intend to hone my craft by focusing on intricate details reserved for the intimacy of those who wear them— diamonds on the reverse of necklace backs, beautiful hand-quilted silk linings, and intricate embroidery that mimics complex fabrics,” says Mukherjee on his plans for the next chapter. Given that his work embodies a constant dialogue between nostalgia and reinvention, and is both rooted in heritage and fluent in contemporary vernacular, it’s a safe bet to say that we can expect both more of the same and some of what we’ve never seen before from the designer. If there’s one thing that Mukherjee has always been good at, it’s still keeping us guessing, even 25 years later. 

Lead Image: Models in Sabyasachi’s 25th anniversary collection

Image credits: The brand 

This piece originally appeared in the January- February 2025 print edition of Harper's Bazaar India

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