Gaurav Gupta’s latest fashion inspiration is from a Dubai you haven’t seen before

Handpicked by our editors, The Nod List is a fortnightly roundup of fashion, beauty, design, art, travel and food news, covering the newest drops, the hottest spots and everything you need to live that best life.

Dune, but make it couture

Drive for an hour and half out of Dubai, through the bare desert, and you will be surprised to reach a lake of pristine blue waters surrounded by a ridge of mountains. This is Hatta, a scenic retreat that designer Gaurav Gupta visited last year. “Hatta at dusk was pure inspiration—watching the light shift across the mountains, turning rugged stone into shades of molten gold and blush. That contrast between raw nature and something almost surreal stayed with me,” he said. The result of that trip is a new couture collection in collaboration with Visit Dubai. In this line of five gowns, each draws inspiration from a different aspect of the region’s landscape and culture—its arched buildings, the golden dunes, the water around Dubai creek. There’s a gown studded with more than 2,000 crystals, which the designer said brought to mind the sunlight bouncing off Hatta’s mountain ridges. Now that’s a postcard that will last forever.

The collection is available to order online and at select Gaurav Gupta stores across India

Chicken, rice, and all things nice

At Khao Man Gai by Seefah, a new blue-tiled chicken and rice shop in Mumbai, a small gentrified crowd is always hustling for a table. As the name suggests, the tiny eatery spotlights one dish (khao man gai) that comes in three versions of chicken—steamed, grilled or deep fried. There’s little else but a five-dish menu of appetisers as accompaniments. If not the simple cult dish, then the stainless-steel cutlery and the soul-stirring broth to sip in between will transport you to the aromatic roadside eateries of Thailand.

Address: Shop No 14, Dunhill Apartments, Waroda Rd, Ranwar, Bandra West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400050. Timings: 12 noon to 4pm; 6pm to 11.30 pm. Tues closed. Price: Rs 1,200

It’s all about the bass notes

Orphéon, Diptyque’s newest launch in India, is a smokey, woody, deep scent that tries to capture nights of revelry at the iconic jazz club it is named after. Notes of cedar, tonka bean, and jasmine make it great for evenings. The line also features two scented candles—Narguilé and Genévrier—if you wanted to recreate some of those Parisian jazz club vibes in your own home. 

Address: Diptyque, The Chanakya, New Delhi. Price: Rs 9,200 onwards for the EDP

Bed, bath, and beyond with Anavila

Anavila, known for its breezy linen saris, is now dressing up homes. The brand’s home collection brings its signature elegance to interiors with soft furnishings—think cushions, bed linen, and plush throws. Experience this exciting shift at this year’s India Design, where creative innovations in design and interiors take centre stage. 

India Design ID  2025 is on from February 20 to February 23, NSIC Grounds, New Delhi. Tickets available here

A Nobel Prize winner strikes again

If you’ve come down from the highs of dragon-riding in Rebecca Yarros’s Onyx Storm, We Do Not Part by Han Kang will spark some serious reflection. The Nobel Prize winner’s latest novel draws from a particularly violent episode in Korean history—the state massacre of protestors in anti-communist violence in the late 1940s—and reframes it within her trademark magic realism. Kyungha, a Seoul-based author, gets a message from Inseon, a former colleague from their journalism days. Inseon has been hospitalised and needs Kyungha to travel to Jeju Island, the setting for countless K-dramas, to take care of her pet bird. Things, obviously, aren’t so simple once Kyungha gets there, something to be expected from the author whose most famous work involved a woman turning into a tree. 

Published by Hamish Hamilton, ’We Do Not Part’ is available in all leading bookstores