Bandra-girl energy with a Schiaparelli edge: Inside Krésha Bajaj’s closet

When I rap the golden lion knocker on the mint-green door to designer Krésha Bajaj’s Bandra penthouse, her enthusiastic Shih Tzu, Kimchi, bounds forward to greet me. Bajaj races after him, dressed in a black Cos dress and denim Schiaparelli jacket, her most recent purchase from the Parisian brand she avidly collects.

Around us, golden light streams in from the glass windows of Bajaj’s sea-facing apartment, framed by views of the Arabian Sea, the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, and the cross atop Mount Mary Church. She turns her attention back to the camera, posing with Kimchi and a sculptural mug in the shape of a naked body in her hand (another of her many collections). From Hermès bags and vintage jackets to kooky candles and ceramic curios, is there anything she doesn’t collect? “People!” she laughs. “I’m not into cars, high jewellery or real estate either,” she grins.

But her love for fashion runs deep—a long-standing affair that began in her teenage years, when style became her language of rebellion and self-expression. And nowhere is that more evident than in her closet downstairs, a space that’s equal parts wardrobe, archive, and personal museum.

A closet of curiosities

Bajaj leads us there, past the faux fireplace flanked by two golden cranes (“From Chor Bazaar in Oshiwara!”), above which hang two Dale Chihuly artworks (“These are from his first black-and-white series”), and down the winding staircase to an all-ivory room lined with shelves of designer heels and handbags, a dedicated closet for her Hermès collectibles, and another lined with her favourite black jackets from brands like Margiela, Schiaparelli, Mugler, and special finds from the ’80s scored after marathon hours in her favourite Parisian vintage stores.

“I’m most drawn to vintage and one-of-a-kind finds, pieces with a story,” she says, admitting she rarely hankers after new-season drops. “Though, I did give in for the first time in years,” she confesses, pulling out a Chanel trench from the Coco Neige 2025-26 collection—the same viral one that reveals the logo only when it gets wet. “It’s a bit logo-heavy for my taste, but the fabric innovation won me over,” she says. “I’m more into vintage Chanel otherwise.”

Cue: a ’90s-era suit, a quilted leather ankle bag from 2008 that was inspired by Lindsay Lohan’s court-ordered ankle monitor, Chanel Sport flippers, and drawers of vintage jewellery.

But for Bajaj, collecting isn’t about mindless consumption. She’s drawn to technique and construction, often taking these pieces into her atelier to dissect the details with her karigars. “I bought that Chanel only after I sold two watches at an auction,” she says, matter-of-factly. There’s a method (and meticulous budgeting) behind the indulgence—she even hosts quarterly closet swaps with her childhood girlfriends, complete with a point system to trade their pieces.

She’s a thoroughbred Bandra girl like that—mixing high and low, never too precious about how she styles herself. “I grew up in Bandra, and that does reflect in my style,” Bajaj muses, taking a sip of what she says is her eleventh coffee of the day. “It’s easy-going, expressive. I think Bandra people just have a very individual sense of style, no?”

Case in point: when she attended the Hermès spring/summer 2026 show in Paris this fall, she wore a belt bag from Jean Paul Gaultier’s 2011 collection for Hermès—but as a corset top—paired with a fringe leather skirt from her own label. “I hunted for that piece for five years,” she says. “It was finally sourced for me in Shanghai, and I flew to Hong Kong overnight to pick it up.” Her closet is full of stories like that, which she is in the process of logging in a catalogue—with provenance, anecdotes, and exactly how she’s worn it.

Bajaj is, after all, an ardent list maker. Responsible eldest-daughter energy, if you may. She is the firstborn of the late Kishor Bajaj—the visionary entrepreneur behind bespoke tailoring company Badasaab, who also designed costumes for over 700 films. As a restaurateur, he was the one to bring dining experiences like Hakkasan and Yauatcha to India. Her mother, Kintu Bajaj, used to run the boutique First Lady with designer James Ferreira.

So, it’s hardly surprising that Bajaj was drawn to fashion early on. “My parents were very strict about education, curfews, boys—all of it. But when it came to fashion, I had total freedom to be expressive,” she smiles.

From goth boots to gold zardozi

At 13, a petite-framed Bajaj—“a tiny tot who just wasn’t being taken seriously!” as she puts it—discovered Frankenstein boots with 8-inch platform heels at London’s Camden Market. And therein began her teenage goth phase: black robes, dark lipstick, heavy kohl, ripped tees and all.

When she eventually launched e-commerce portal Koëcsh in 2013—after studying fashion design across London College of Fashion, Parsons in New York, Paris, and Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles—it carried the same rebellious streak. The website sold leather skirts, fringe capes, vintage jewellery, and Jeffrey Campbell shoes at a time when indie e-commerce was only just taking shape.

“But Koëcsh was ahead of its time,” Bajaj admits. Just as she was rethinking her next steps, fate—and fashion—intervened. In 2015, while designing her own wedding wardrobe (and her entire family’s) for her Udaipur wedding to jeweller Vanraj Zaveri, she found herself at a crossroads.

“It was a risky undertaking as I had to let go of my masterji overnight, just four months before the wedding,” she remembers. “Every attempt to find a replacement failed—so I ended up training a menswear tailor from Badasaab instead. He didn’t know how to cut a blouse, and we worked on every piece together from scratch. Today, every single piece at our atelier is patterned by him.”

The ‘love story lehenga’ that Bajaj eventually made for her wedding day—an ivory lehenga with gold zardozi embroidery that recreated milestone moments from her whirlwind romance with Zaveri, blew up the internet. “Miss Malini covered it first. The post went up on a Friday. By Monday, we had over 800 emails from clients and press,” she recalls. “It was everywhere—from The New York Times to mainstream Japanese media. BBC even flew down from London to film the making.”

The next chapter

What began with the viral love story lehenga eventually evolved from Koëcsh to Krésha Bajaj, a couture and occasion-wear label. The lehenga still remains one of its defining icons, but there’s much more to the brand. “Whether it’s our edgiest corset belt or a bridal lehenga, we are ultimately about heirloom pieces,” Bajaj explains. “The constants are attention to detail, craftsmanship, and a celebration of the female form.”

A decade after that switch, Bajaj admits that 2025 has been somewhat of a landmark year. She’s launched her first store in Delhi, is putting finishing touches on a men’s speakeasy store in Mumbai, and made her international debut at Dubai Fashion Week with a ready-to-wear collection, ‘The Archive of Hidden Things’. “I didn’t do much PR around it. Because I figured if I f***ed up, it wouldn’t be the worst thing,” she giggles. Turns out, she didn’t—the collection won rave reviews and is already a bestseller at her Delhi store.

The experience also nudged Bajaj out of her comfort zone and into the frame; Bajaj was one of India’s OG fashion influencers before the word even existed. “My team, and my husband—who’s now part of the brand—basically ganged up on me,” she jokes. Her early Instagram was a mood-board masterclass—perfect flat lays, back shots, mirror selfies, but rarely her face. “That’s such an accurate observation,” she laughs. “I have a really big, stubborn personality in real life, but I’m quite shy on camera.”

Still, give her Schiaparelli zebra-print pants, a vintage Mugler corset, and Tabi boots, and watch her come out to play.