Nov. 10-25
Across categories and generations, there is a quiet story emerging: Indian design feels unmistakably at home and at ease with itself, writes Nishtha Mukherjee.
Across fashion, craft, and culture, Indian brands are no longer designing to look modern; they’re designing to be like themselves.
Spend a little time moving through India’s design landscape today, and you’ll notice a new kind of confidence. At one end sits Raw Mango – deliberate, minimal, grounded in craft. On the other hand, Bombay Sweet Shop is full of character, playful, and unafraid of colour or nostalgia.
They couldn’t look more different, yet both feel unmistakably modern. Neither is chasing global cues or trying to “look contemporary”. They simply sound like themselves.
Across categories and generations, that’s the quiet story emerging: Indian design feels unmistakably at home and at ease with itself.
In the 2000s and early 2010s, much of Indian design carried a similar brief — to look modern. It was the visual language of aspiration: clean fonts, neutral palettes, borrowed restraint. That era made sense for its moment, with an economy still defining itself and focused on global relevance.
Today, that brief has deepened. It no longer functions primarily as proof of modernity; it now operates as a voice.
Arnab Ray, Executive Creative Director at Landor India, says that design with intention and the use of regional nuance are becoming a source of strength.
“Global polish still matters for some categories, especially where business aspirations or competitive sets demand it,” said Ray.
“But for many consumer and lifestyle brands, provenance and regional nuance are becoming real sources of strength. When it’s done with intention, not superficially, it helps brands premiumise and adds meaning that people actually value.”
This interplay between polish and provenance is shaping a new kind of modernity in India.
What’s most interesting about this shift is how it stretches across time and methods. Across legacy houses and new-age labels, the same design instinct is showing up in different ways.
Founded by Sanjay Garg in 2008, Raw Mango has spent over 15 years building a visual and material language that lets culture breathe without explanation.
The sari is design and its imagery quiet, composed, and assured — the kind of quiet that comes only from confidence. It shows how tradition and modernity can collaborate rather than compete.
Established in 1978, Jaipur Rugs has evolved its identity without losing meaning. Once artisanal, now editorial – its photography feels cinematic and its collaborations,
global. Their recent campaigns, like Wimbledon and the Women’s Cricket World Cup, place handmade India confidently on international and unprecedented grounds without making it a spectacle or a gimmick. Here, craft becomes contemporary through narrative, not nostalgia.
If Jaipur Rugs translates craft, Phool translates ritual since 2017. In a category no one thought could be reinvented — incense, dhoop, rangoli — Phool built an entire aesthetic universe for a new audience. Their packaging is vivid, sensorial, and deeply narrative-led. Every surface tells a story, and its success lies in the emotional intelligence of its design – how it takes something ordinary and reawakens its wonder.
Launched in 2024, Qaafi is built on restraint — not as minimalism, but as clarity.
“The starting point was to challenge how Indian skincare is framed: always mysticism, sacred herbs, or Ayurvedic shorthand. We wanted something contemporary, rooted but not nostalgic,” said Qaafi Founder Aahan Chatterjee.
Qaafi’s design language – cement-grey paper, geometric layouts, unfussy typography — feels carved rather than decorated.
As Chatterjee puts it: “It’s not about silence or noise. It’s about clarity, intent, and originality.”
In a market addicted to picking a side between minimalism and maximalism, Qaafi’s restraint feels fresh.
A fashion label built on stitch and instinct, Kartik Research captures what modern Indian design looks like when it’s led by material. His work is experimental, tactile, and self-assured — a reflection of design that knows its place in both local and global conversations. It challenges the idea that Indian design must “show” its roots; here, it simply has them.
Few brands capture the new mood of Indian design as clearly as Bombay Sweet Shop. Created in 2020 by the same team behind The Bombay Canteen and O Pedro, Bombay Sweet Shop turns something as everyday as mithai (Indian sweets) into theatre — bold and emotional. The brand understands that joy can be just as intentional as restraint.
Across that spectrum, from Raw Mango’s restraint to Bombay Sweet Shop’s exuberance, runs the same thread: coherence and ease. Every brand knows what it’s trying to say and uses design to say it clearly and unapologetically.
Another noteworthy shift is simply brands deciding where design lives and shows up the most prominently.
For Raw Mango and Kartik Research, design starts at the product — in the cut, weave, and stitch.
For Phool and Qaafi, it lives in the surfaces people touch — material, packaging, tone.
For Jaipur Rugs, it sits across the whole ecosystem — product, maker, photography, purpose.
The common denominator is that design has moved upstream. It’s not an afterthought; it helps decide what gets made and how a brand behaves across the board to drive recall.
A visually informed audience.
Decades of heightened exposure, from Instagram to indie culture, have made India’s consumers design fluent. People can sense when minimalism is mechanical or nostalgia is faked. That level of awareness rewards authenticity in brands.
Evolving leadership
A new generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs view design as a way to align the brand and business – a way to express intent, intelligence, and emotion through every choice.
Indian consumers no longer reward caution; they reward clarity. Younger brands treat design as something to deploy, while legacy brands still treat it as something to preserve.
As Shreya Arora, ex-designer (Ogilvy & Dentsu) and now growth strategist, explains:
“Indian consumers no longer reward caution; they reward clarity. And that’s where many legacy brands fall short – they see design as something to preserve, while younger brands see it as something to deploy.”
Cultural ease
Perhaps most importantly, India’s relationship with its own aesthetics has softened. The question is no longer “Can India look modern?” but “What does modern look like here?” We are increasingly designing not to fit in or stand apart; we design for it to make sense.
“For brands reaching deeper into regions and beyond tier-2 or tier-3 markets, vernacular has become essential — not just visually, but through voice and sonic cues as well,” says Ray.
“Metro city brands can still get by with Latin scripts, but businesses with a regional or nationalistic focus should consider investing in Indian vernacular to make sense locally. Design has to flex; it can’t be one global template.”
Indian design today is plural, layered, and comfortable with contradiction.
Raw Mango’s stillness and Bombay Sweet Shop’s exuberance aren’t opposites; they’re both expressions of assurance. And this mindset extends beyond aesthetics and into behaviour.
“The Davids of the landscape often outmanoeuvre the Goliaths not because they’re louder, but because they’re faster to sense cultural change,” says Arora.
She says it’s not size that determines relevance; movement does.
“Legacy brands that stay alive to culture thrive. She notes how Amul remains culturally sharp or how Marie Gold redesigned the biscuit itself for its Avani Lekhara tribute. Evolution doesn’t dilute equity. Stagnation does.”
And that agility and instinct are the real story.
You can see it everywhere: in a weave, in a bottle, in a line of type. In the quiet of Raw Mango, the boldness of Bombay Sweet Shop, the measured stillness of Qaafi.
And perhaps for the first time in a while, what modern looks like here finally feels like here, too.
