The textiles, techniques, prints, colours and crafts of India have long provided material, literal and metaphorical, for Western fashion designers and shoppers, as well as backdrops for countless fashion shoots and shows. But India’s native designers have not been accorded the same prominence and respect as their nation’s sartorial traditions.
“It’s good that [the interest in India] creates room for people to listen to more diverse stories,” says Kartik Kumra, the creative brain behind the fashion label Karu Research. “That’s always interesting, and I think we’ve benefited from that. The bad side is that there’s a romanticisation of craft without implementation of it. So, what you actually end up having is a very diluted version, like a digital print of a block print or machine embroidery that was once hand embroidery. The way we scale at Karu isn’t by diluting the core product.”
We Are Village
Kumra, who is 23, is talking to me via Zoom from his home in New Delhi, just hours before catching a flight to Paris to show his spring/summer 2024 collection. Having been going for barely two years, Karu Research is still a fledgling in fashion-industry terms, but that hasn’t stopped the brand reaching the semi-finals of this year’s prestigious LVMH Prize, being seen on the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Joe Jonas and Kendrick Lamar, and stocked in the UK at Selfridges, Mr Porter and Ssense. Not bad for a label that started as a lockdown side project while its founder was studying for an economics degree at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I didn’t really love it,” says Kumra of his course. “I was just doing it because I was pretty good at math. It’s one of those things that you do to figure out what you actually want to do. And if you don’t figure that out, then you can go into consulting or something. [Lockdown] was a moment where I had a little more time and a lot more freedom to try something.”
Camp-Collar Embroidered Cotton-Voile Shirt
Small Talk Camp-Collar Printed Cotton-Voile Shirt
Camp-Collar Embellished Embroidered Cotton Shirt
“Karu” translates from Sanskrit as “artisan”, and it’s this native craftsmanship that Kumra spotlights. Ninety per cent of the fabrics in the current autumn/winter 2023 collection are made without electricity and loomed by hand, while 80 per cent of the garments have been naturally dyed. Kumra honours ancient techniques, then presents them via contemporary silhouettes: slouchy knits, breathable suiting and standout separates, including hand-embroidered jackets and studded denim.
We Are Village
“We wanted to create a wardrobe for the people that I interact with — photographers, stylists, other designers in Delhi — who are developing their own personal style while balancing that against more conservative backgrounds and Indian traditions.”
Does he find it easier to run a business now he’s free of the essays and lectures? “I used to think that, but actually now I don’t,” he says, laughing. “It was more of a part-time thing before, and the business has tripled in scale this year. It’s definitely more intense than it was.”
Not for the first time, perhaps, academia’s loss is fashion’s gain. ○
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pr%2FQrqCrnV6YvK571KRmrKypobJwrZNtb25oZWeEcLfAq6xmqpWosqK%2BwqFm