The Indian labels running 2025’s cultural agenda

Homegrown enterprise has ruled 2025. Across food, fashion, wellness, protein, beauty, lifestyle, and sustainability, Indian founders have set the tone for innovation and desirability. Digital acceleration has pushed niche businesses into mainstream relevance, and with consumers demanding transparency, quality, and cultural credibility, Indian labels have stepped forward with answers. As the year draws to a close, Bazaar India highlights the homegrown brands that captured national attention in 2025 and deserve a place in every wardrobe, pantry, and beauty shelf.

Here are our hot favourites! 

Manam Chocolate

Manam has become a benchmark for Indian craft chocolate, championing a bean-to-bar philosophy rooted in Indian terroir. Working directly with over one hundred farmer partners and its sister fermentary in West Godavari, the brand has turned scientific fermentation and careful drying into a signature process. The Manam Chocolate Karkhana, a ten-thousand-square-foot space, merges retail with an immersive chocolate-making experience, positioning cacao experimentation as a cultural exploration. Named after the Telugu word for we, the brand reflects a collective identity that spans farmers, fermenters, chocolatiers, and storytellers and marks a contemporary chapter for Indian chocolate.

Gud Gum

Gud Gum has rewritten the narrative of everyday chewing gum by removing plastic completely and returning to natural chicle. With biodegradable formulations and flavours spanning fruit, spice, mint, and matcha, the brand aligns clean ingredients with daily pleasure. Each product echoes its ethos of Do Gud by being good for the consumer and good for the planet.

Notice me

Notice Me positions the handbag as a personality cue rather than an accessory. Designed by Komal Jain and Harpreet Kaur, the brand treats each silhouette as a playful rebellion against beige conformity, embedding humour, nostalgia, and cultural attitude into textile and shape. Their bags behave like inside jokes, ice-breakers, and instant statements for anyone who treats style with intent rather than solemnity.

Summer Away

Summer Away frames swim and vacation wear as a slow luxury mindset. Operating between Mumbai and New York, the label prioritises pieces made to last across many seasons, refusing trend-driven urgency. The founders advocate a no-waste policy that restricts production to what can be sold, keeping landfills out of the supply chain. Each design blends the romance of travel with a grounded sense of home, pushing Indian-made resortwear into a global aesthetic.

Skinny Bakes

Skinny Bakes has become a pantry essential for clean snacking. The brand produces vegan, gluten-free granola with no refined sugar and relies on whole ingredients for texture and flavour. It works as a topping for oats and chia bowls or functions as a standalone snack with coffee.

I Blame Beads

I Blame Beads delivers personal jewellery with an accessible luxury approach. Founded by Harsh Gala, the brand combines affordability with considered design and a wide aesthetic spectrum, from everyday classics to statement pieces. The brand focuses on emotional wearability and customer experience, continually experimenting with materials and silhouettes to keep pace with evolving style while maintaining finishing standards.

O.W.N One With Nature

O.W.N is a slow-living beauty label shaped by natural formulations and unhurried processes. Founded by Madhavi Khullar and later joined by Megha Bhargava, the brand has grown from handmade goat milk soaps created in a kitchen to a dedicated workshop known as the O W N shed. Each product is designed to restore stillness and purity in a world led by speed, forming the beginning of a wider bathing experience built on clean, thoughtful ingredients.

Atomicc Code

Atomicc Code merges wellness, fragrance, and ritual through products that sit at the intersection of science and spirituality. Led by healer and wellness practitioner Gautam Seth, the brand works with native Asian botanicals and years of research to design incense, candles, and sensorial objects that support balance. The result is a fragrance universe steeped in cultural memory and modern discovery.

Mauli Rituals

Mauli Rituals approaches wellbeing as daily emotional and physical repair, drawing on Ayurvedic lineage and generational knowledge. Created by Anita and Bittu Kaushal, the brand formulates high-performance blends to soothe stress, anxiety, fatigue, and imbalance. With more than sixty awards and a philosophy rooted in devotion, Mauli Rituals translates heritage into contemporary routines for skin, digestion, and emotional grounding.

Aprajita Toor

Aprajita Toor began with a search for refined Indian sandals and evolved into a footwear and accessories label that amplifies colour, artisanship, and expressive design. Operated from an eco-minded Mumbai workshop, the brand draws from regional craft traditions and positions footwear as a mode of self-definition for women. After more than a decade, the brand continues to expand into bags and jewellery while maintaining its original mission of creative freedom.

Open Form

Open Form, founded by Divisha Sharma, operates with textile responsibility at its core. Using handwoven and plant-based fabrics, the brand champions South Asian craftsmanship through garments shaped with intention and longevity. The clothes act as an easy everyday luxury, designed for women who resist convention and dress to feel held rather than restricted. Sustainability functions as identity rather than strategy, appearing in every stage of making.

Comix

Cosmix was born from herbalist Vibha’s personal experience with PCOS and a rejection of the insecurities marketed by mainstream wellness. Alongside co-founder Soorya, she introduced superfood mixes powered by adaptogens and Ayurvedic knowledge, intended to address skin, sleep, gut health, hormonal balance, and protein needs without miracle claims. The brand has reframed wellness as long-term nourishment with plant protein as an accessible anchor.

Body Butter

Body Butter steps into 2025 with a refreshingly honest take on lingerie. Designed as a daily second skin, the label focuses on support without digging underwires, shaping without discomfort and silhouettes that work with a woman’s routine rather than against it. The brand rejects the idea that comfort is a compromise, offering pieces that are smooth, flexible and ultra-wearable from morning errands to late-night shenanigans. Built around real bodies and real preferences, Body Butter positions lingerie as an essential that should melt into the skin rather than remind you it exists.

From micro-formulations to handcrafted textiles and guilt-free indulgence, Indian founders have shaped a marketplace grounded in cultural pride and forward thinking. These brands represent a shift from impulse consumption to meaningful ownership and from fast novelty to durable value. As the year closes, the momentum of homegrown excellence signals a future defined by Indian craft, Indian intellect, and Indian ambition.

All images: Featured brands 

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