Garuda SS
Garuda SS was conceptualized by self-taught designer Suhail Sahrawat. The label gets its name from the mythical warrior bird from the Indian sub-continent and the army regiment of which the founder’s father was a part. Their story started in New Zealand in 2015 and, from 2017, has flourished in an Indian town called Panchkula, about 250 km from the nation’s capital, Delhi.
They are, notably, India’s only techwear brand. The label treats clothing as more than a form of expression; its main focus is on how the wearer interacts with the garment and its environment. As a result, the label creates high-quality engineered garments like their signature “Workpant V2.1,” the brand’s update on a double knee carpenter pant made with feature-rich and eco-friendly futuristic textiles. With ACRONYM, Aitor Throup, and Carhartt as the brand’s influences, you know you’ve got quality and clever design when you hold any Garuda SS piece.
Moral Science
Moral Science is a love story of rich couture heritage and skilled technique crafted and told in vivid color across the gender spectrum. Is there a science to morality? Who decides what is moral and immoral? The founder of the label, Isha Ahluwalia, reminisces about her “Moral Science” class from her school days, which often led to fascinating interpretations.
The answers to those questions lay in exploring and subverting the ideas of morality; everything can be seen in different, valid ways, which is what her label attempts to represent. The young Indian clothing brand came about in 2020 from a need to create functional, fun apparel and accessories for the nascent Indian market that has recently begun consuming streetwear like never before. The brand’s clothing and accessories are sexy, androgynous, and functional, with a hint of irreverence yet deeply rooted in the crafts of the land.
NoughtOne
NoughtOne, the young and edgy clothing brand from India is a mix of streetwear and tailored. Unafraid to play with experimental details, the label, founded by Abhishek Paatni, showcases ready-to-wear men’s clothing that is utilitarian, dynamic, and urban. Paatni’s tryst with fashion began with an Indian ready-to-wear label after he completed his Master’s in Business Administration. The experience inspired him to start a brand that mashed up free expression with a generalized sense of mainstream clothing. Encapsulating his fascination for numbers on clothes in his branding, he launched NoughtOne, which simply refers to 01.
Key silhouettes in NoughtOne’s collection are packaged with modern hardware, military influences, and a pop color palette. The brand creates an exciting take on traditional Indian wear pieces like the Kurta, the Bandhgala, and the Nehru Jacket, deconstructing them into modern utilitarian silhouettes. An exciting amalgamation of activewear and streetwear.
PRXKHXR
PRXKHXR is an eponymous textile- and print-based clothing label based in New Delhi that creates some of the most exciting shirts you can find around the globe today. The brand was started by Prakhar Chauhan while he was still at design school, where one of his print collections for textile design class was turned into a drop of shirts. To his surprise, one of his classmates bought a shirt from the collection and took it to social media, which brought in a flurry of orders. Since then, Prakhar has been designing and developing prints from scratch.
A chance Instagram conversation with multi-hyphenate Bobby Kim during the 2020 lockdown saw PRXKHXR become the first-ever Indian brand to collaborate with the iconic The Hundreds. The drop was centered around a print created by Prakhar. It illustrated a peacock and tiger engaged in battle, intensified by the contrast between the serenity of the scene and the violence depicted. Brought to life on T-shirts, shirts, shorts, and an anorak, must-haves in anyone’s wardrobe. And while streetwear has encouraged a lot of creatives to bring their expression out through T-shirts, PRXKHXR’s go-to medium has been the camp collar shirt.
