New Vanguards

South Asian creatives today are no longer confined to the margins or reduced to tokenism. At Bazaar Dialogue's inaugural edition in June in collaboration with The Bicester Collection, they assert a singular vision rooted in heritage, but articulated through a sharp contemporary lens. ANWESH BANERJEE speaks to the six panelists who have stepped beyond geographic and conceptual borders to define what it means to create from and for the South Asian mainland and diaspora.

- By ANWESH BANERJEE

DHRUV KAPOOR
For the first time

Dhruv Kapoor's earliest memories of fashion are rooted in everyday poetry: The quiet dignity of the “Sunday best” worn by people at home. There were no rules, only the beauty of instinctual self-expression. “It was incredible to witness how a simple combination could tell a story about the wearer,” he reflects. That fascination has now evolved into a lifelong search of how clothes hold memory, duality, and meaning—all at once.

As a student at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, he was enamoured with Manish Arora's electric flamboyance and Rohit Bal's sculptural tailoring. But it was his engagement with Marc Jacobs' era at Louis Vuitton and Nicolas Ghesquière's Balenciaga that ignited a new awareness of restraint, asymmetry, and the unexpected. His time studying womenswear in Milan further sharpened that vision, exposing him to a culture where fashion was essentially a way of life. “Over time, I began to understand my aesthetic,” he explains, “Fusing the expressive India I was raised in with the precision of Italy's tailoring.”

This sensibility formed the scaffolding of his brand. His collections are marked by a singular voice. At a time when Indian designers and homegrown labels continued pushing the boundaries of wedding couture, Kapoor—with this brand iconography in the instantly recognisable Devnagari script—brought the hitherto unexplored category of streetwear. “One of the most valuable lessons I've learnt is that nothing is permanent. Everything is in motion,” he notes. His FW25/26 collection recently showcased in Milan with the label's signature oversized androgynous silhouettes, jasmine-like embroidery, and excessive prints, which he describes as 'the purest reflection' of the label to date, is evidence of this evolution: A vision rooted in craft, yet forward-facing, minimal yet intricate.