Dhruv Kapoor is fashioning a new creative identity for India

It’s an 8 a.m. call time! I am on Dhruv Kapoor’s schedule, except I didn’t meditate for an hour but chugged a cup of Americano, and rushed to meet him at his newly built atelier in Gurgaon. The multi-storey expansive space seems like stepping inside a wellness centre or a top-secret laboratory straight out of a sci-fi film. It’s white as far as my eyes could see, minimally designed with white tables and chairs, the glass doors add to the space, clothes on the racks offsets the ‘white’, and larger-than-life portraits from his previous collections adorn the walls as accents. The massive ‘Kapoor’ signage in Hindi and English at the reception desks could act as portals to his world, the silence is deafening (one could think out loud), and my mumbles reverberate. The space is a reflection of the designer’s natural inclination to spirituality and human consciousness. Kapoor walks in wearing a pastel purple sweatshirt (later changed into a green jacket for our shoot) that he picked according to the day of the week, Friday in our case.

On my third cup of coffee, we dive straight into his Milan outing in January, a city that has turned into the designer’s playground ever since his debut in 2022. The F/W’25-26 ready-to-wear co-ed collection strikes a visual and aesthetic continuity that the designer has built over seasons. He borrows from India and explores themes of cultural evolution, emotional well-being, and the intersection of ancient practices with modern design. As the show notes suggest, Kapoor takes cues from the eclectic street style of rural India and reimagines them in fresh formats, and a dynamic colour palette that fuses energy and practicality. Bold tones and earthy hues come to life on custom-textured cottons, durable nylons, boiled wool, embroidered denim, heavy suiting, and plush fleece in varied finishes and washes. Certain pieces from the collection are designed as ‘breath-work manuals’, encouraging mindfulness and emotional balance through thoughtful details. The designer’s intention is to look beyond a visual statement, and foster a deeper connection to the wearer’s inner health and spiritual harmony. “Spiritual themes are going to be omnipresent in whatever I create. You are building something that the other person is going to wear. If they don’t feel good about it, they won’t purchase that piece. So ideally, what you are creating is fine tweaks, or just a refined emotional uplift,” Kapoor explains.

Upon analysis of everything that the designer has built, season on season, it would come across to be a hyper mix of two different worlds—one that is a little out there and extreme, and the other is handcrafted, more occasion-driven. “The two somehow are not sitting in the same space, even though we built both with the same energy. But one represents the version I aspire to be—the one out there with extreme colours or hyper graphics, and the other is who I am. We ideally wanted to divide and put the main offering that we show in Milan, more occasion-driven, subtle, and handcrafted. For the other, younger segment, we are calling it Kapoor 2.0 and it releases in July. It will be more accessible with the price point not exceeding ₹15,000-20,000 and will open us to a much larger segment in the market,” he explains.

Kapoor has his way with the fabric—from reimagining the scopes of it with experimental silhouettes and tailored precision, to upcycling and custom-developing his own. So, where does his design process and fabric of choice stand in the course of building a collection? I ask. “We don’t have a fixed format to be honest. I’m never bothered by specific seasons. Taking the climate crisis into consideration, if you are focusing on the season, you are losing half of it. So, there is practically zero restriction when it comes to the process. My team is also free to choose what format or what direction they wish to take, and how they wish to start. But the teams are all divided across sections from graphics, embroidery to outerwear.”

The research is an ongoing process for Kapoor and his team. It starts to come together as and when he meets different suppliers. He adds, “We never discard any fabric. If something seems too summery for a fall/winter run, it will be saved for spring. The flow of ideas is seamless. A clear vision comes in time as we move in that direction of ideas. I never like to push. There is a phase that comes where you are going to be completely blank and it happens after every show. Earlier, I would fight that phase but now I embrace it by looking at other areas like management, the merchandise section, or just analyse what we have delivered in the last few seasons. But there is no fixed format.”

There are multiple functions for Kapoor that are consistently running in the background and can be completely directionless. The garments are tried and tested with or without the theme of a specific season in the picture. “In the end you have a library of maybe 200 fits, and a clear direction with the graphics and the embroideries. It is then that we can choose and start to tweak those fits to go with the season. That’s how it normally works—so when we are researching, it is more about the construction, the shapes, the techniques, and then fusing and blending it according to the mood of collection.”

In the end, it all fits like a puzzle for the designer who has garnered worldwide attention that catapulted him into a global brand identity. But Kapoor’s aim was never to take Indian fashion to the world but borrow from its rich cultural heritage and create a distinct design vocabulary. “I have always worked around the challenge of how to twist Indian craft and make it contemporary. Whether putting it on a shirt or a jacket. It might sometimes be very Zen, but it will always have an influence that comes from the country, which is naturally built into the collection.”

Kapoor’s global presence has strengthened over the years and he has grasped the nuances of it by now. It’s easier said than done with over 40 stockists all over the world. “Strangely, they work in a very segmented format. What works in Japan may not work in the US. What works in the Middle East may not work in Europe even though that’s the country where we showcase. They are more minimal and prefer clean-cuts. But now if you have them convinced into trying new things like new colour schemes, it is a major shift. You can never predict anything.” Even in a large collection, the designer adds, there will be different zones picking different moods from the collection that works for them. Over time he has figured this out—he predivides the collection into segments. “The books and the timesheets for the buyers are curated specifically for them based on their previous purchases, with one being the master book,” he explains.

There is a method to Kapoor’s madness and his design vocabulary stands testament to it. Take for instance his F/W’ 25-26 collection, the handmade floral prints are inspired by the traditional Ajrakh block-printing technique. The intricate embroideries, appliqués, ornate borders, and layered embellishments are reimagined in sleek, lightweight materials. Marigolds and jasmines are meticulously woven into fabrics. But when questioned about his creative identity, Kapoor quips, “If you ask me what is the brand DNA? I don’t know. The only thing I tell people in fashion or in general is that if you’re going to pretend to be something you’re not, you are bound to falter. Say for instance, we follow the natural format of presenting season after season. Even if I am looking at a third party for reference, the ultimate version that comes out is completely personal. If you look around, everything in every possible shape, size, and colour already exists. Everyone is just giving their version of the same things around us. The design language is very natural and is based more on instinct. So, you’re never really living a make believe kind of system.”

Kapoor’s roots are in streetwear and its modern iterations. Think maximalism, graphic details, inventive form and function, and denim charting the gender fluid course. If you look at people dressing up, whether in general or on social media, it is the way we are connected now and how we are exposed to information, he observes. They are more confident and free to choose the way they wish to represent themselves. Elaborating on genderless fashion, he adds, “Even when we were building the brand, it was never on the lines of we want to design a women’s jacket or a men’s jacket, rather it was always about ‘we have to design a jacket’. Whether a man wants it or a woman wants it, we should get on board either way.

While the clothes are not broadly unisex, the designer tweaks the sizing as bodies and ratios are very different. “So, it’s taken into consideration in our final outfit but we will always have a segment that runs the same. We will have a XXL to an XL. Sizing format is there for those pieces but otherwise it is never directed towards a specific gender which overall just builds that inclusive format. It’s not really an agenda again, it’s just the format we go with.”

Overarching to Kapoor’s wider creative acumen, the recent collaboration with BOAT is a fairly new ground for him. When you are exposing the ideologies of the brand in such diverse formats, you have to gauge a larger segment of the market and its target audience. “You have to put things into perspective in order to cater to a different format. It’s always a learning experience for us but for me to choose who we work with is always about what the exchange of ideas is going to be like. Is there something to learn or to express beyond what we already do here?”

The AJIO collaboration last year was a big learning experience for the designer. It challenged him to understand how to make something that is going to fit multiple sizes and genders, and how to adapt the brand ideology and shift it in a way to address those needs in the market. “I would normally meet the team once, which is just to understand what they are thinking. And then fuse it with what we feel to blend the two together.”

Kapoor has his hands full in 2025 with Dhruv Kapoor 2.0, working on a drop once in a year and plans to build from it. Additionally, he wants to focus on diverse experiences from the brand. “I want to expand into the holistic sides of the brand like wellness or recreational centres that will utilise western technology to redefine or revisit the ancient sciences from our country. For instance, how to use colours, sound, fragrances, and other things from our ancient scriptures like the Vedas, in a contemporary light to balance the mind, body, and the soul,” he concludes.

Photographs: Tongpangnuba Longchari

This article first appeared in Bazaar India's March-April 2025 issue.

Also read: From Sabyasachi to Masaba: here's why designers are looking to jewellery

Also read: Fashion week vs. TikTok trends: Who’s actually calling the shots?