Hot off the runway: the young designers on our radar

In a loud season laced with fashion OGs, there was, if you paid attention, a quiet, but steady hum—the sound of newbies entering the fashion world. Three labels in particular, who debuted at Lakmé Fashion Week, showcased collections that had a distinct point of view and created a visual language unique to their designers. Their aesthetics ran the gamut from maximalist to upcycled camo, and each managed to have an impact. Below, the new designers to watch.

The future of fashion looks maximal

Designer Ankur Verma’s penchant for all things oversized began when he was just pint sized. “I’ve been obsessed with wearing my dad’s clothes since I was a child. I loved how oversized they were, and gradually, I started wearing them to college. Back then, people would make fun of me for wearing such huge clothes.” But the world has caught up, and with his label, TIL, Verma’s larger-than-life vision has room to expand.

At his recent Lakmé Fashion Week showcase, Verma’s models were engulfed in exaggerated layers. Macramé dresses, asymmetrical shirts, and power-shouldered crop tops were worn under embroidered vests, kimono jackets, and wide-collar coats. “I’m drawn to silhouettes that emphasise layering and versatility,” Verma says. “I love creating pieces that can be styled in multiple ways, allowing the wearer to express themselves freely. I usually work with upcycled fabrics, incorporating katran and patchwork, and experimenting with knitting, weaving, and embroidery.”

The brand’s name, which is the Hindi word for mole, was inspired by Verma’s late grandmother. “I was obsessed with my grandmother’s skin. I used to sleep holding her hand, feeling the texture of her skin, and after I lost her, that connection stayed with me. Back in 2021, during the pandemic, I was reminiscing about how Dadi would always say, ‘Agar haath mein til hai, toh paisa aayega’ (If you have a mole on your hand, money will come). Earlier, it used to make me laugh, but in that moment, it gave me strength and hope. Then it hit me—why not name my label TIL? And from that thought, the brand was born.” He adds, “TIL tries to draw from body textures like freckles, moles, and wrinkles, which represent the raw beauty of imperfections.”

You’ll find the roughness Verma refers to in his prints that resemble blurred watercolour landscapes, the scribble of thread work, and the collage-like mashup of colours. But through it all, you see that the multiple layers are all carefully tailored and each piece is refined enough to be worn individually. That sense of balance is pivotal to the maximalist aesthetic, and it’s what makes Verma one to watch.

The future of fashion looks utilitarian

The founders of Margn, Saurabh Maurya and Ranjit Yadav, weren’t raised around fashion. As Maurya says, “Where we grew up, fashion is merely a word, we hardly ever saw anything ‘fashionable’. What we did see was the extensive use of crafts such as sikki grass baskets, pottery made on manual wheels, and quilting using old fabrics. The lack of resources compelled us to use and reuse everything—from plastic bags to clothes. The simplicity of our people and their living conditions left a deep-rooted impression, and later, translated into our design thinking.”

With each collection, the NIFT Bengaluru graduates explore a different technique and for fall/winter 2024, they dove into the craft of crochet—specifically the idea of a thalposh, a hand-knitted cover traditionally used for food, giving it a more fashionable, gorpcore update. Think puffer jackets that feature chunky, handwoven knit details, nylon vests with recycled cotton accents, and utility jackets in a plaid bouclé.

“After graduating from college and working for a while, I decided to explore the idea of functional menswear using cross-cultural local crafts, and developed several hand-knitted pieces with the help of a team of women artisans from the Northern Himalayas.” says Maurya. But clothes are just the start. “We want to expand our vision to other areas of life, like accessories, furniture, and cafés. The aim is to develop a sustainable and scaleable business in whatever we do.”

The future of fashion lies in its waste

“We make new clothes from old clothes” is how designer Ritwik Khanna would elevator-pitch his brand RKive City. The winner of the sixth edition of the R|Elan Circular Design Challenge at Lakmé Fashion Week this year, Delhi-based Khanna has seen all aspects of the fashion industry—members of his family have worked in everything from textile milling to cashmere weaving, and his mother even ran a children’s apparel boutique. But after studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, Khanna chose to spend some time at the second-hand clothing centres in Panipat and delved into fashion’s textile waste problem. As a result, at RKive City, “You won’t ever see a garment that’s been made out of a roll of fabric. The primary raw material is always old garments, deconstructed and then reconstructed, given a new life.”

The brand’s current edit is rife with upcycled denim in endless avatars, with patchwork, needlework, playfully placed zippers, and buttons. Standouts of the new collection include a patchwork camo trench (made with a melange of camo-print fabric), double-breasted denim blazers, and white denim overcoat. “Denim is a fabric I’m partial to because it’s so global—it’s made to last. A good double-breasted blazer and straight-cut pants go a long way. It could be for anybody across the room, across the world. Everybody would look good in it.”

It’s rare for a young brand to attain RKive City’s reach so quickly—the brand has already been worn by musicians like Diljit Dosanjh and Joe Jonas, and last year, Khanna opened  a store in the capital’s much-vaunted Dhan Mill Compound.

Khanna’s MO isn’t just to work with waste. It’s to create pieces that revive discarded textiles and make them last, using panelling repair and fabric manipulations. “In warehouses, a lot of the world’s global waste comes in to be sorted into recyclable, upcyclable, or downcyclable garments. I saw a lot of opportunity in these unused garments that would have reached landfills. So essentially, our question was; how do we deconstruct this garment? Can we put it back into the cycle? And that’s how RKive City found its heart.”