Kartik Kumra has graduated to a Paris runway show and opened a retail store in downtown Manhattan since last season. Being based in his native India, showing his collections in France, and selling them around the world with an outpost in the U.S., Kumra has become quite the globetrotter. Has this broader perspective had an impact on his collections? “Maybe, but I think from my perspective it’s more that we want to show the customer where to go as opposed to following what’s selling,” Kumra said backstage. “For a number of years, especially when I was in college, a lot of what we were making was based on what we were selling, we had to keep the lights on,” he added. “As a result of that you [become] stuck in a finite range of silhouettes. Now we can take more liberties, and hopefully it pays off.”
That confidence was palpable in his new collection. For starters, there was not a thong sandal or micro shirt in sight here, despite how inescapable they’ve been this season. Kumra said he was inspired by the idea of “instinctive elegance” he’s come across in his travels; his goal was to translate some of these “inherently elegant moves that don’t feel like they’re from TikTok.” That’s a taller order than it sounds, considering how many of the popular styling gestures of today—draping a sweater over one’s shoulders, adding bag charms to handbags—went viral on social media before they became unavoidable offline.
But Kumra delivered. What he understands is that, be it on New York’s Lower East Side or on the streets of Paris, young people are compelled by an idea of elegance that is nonchalant and unfussy. The world itself is too rigid, too volatile, for clothing that’s constraining. And so Kumra proposed intricately embellished cargo shorts and pants, printed silk trousers, loose shirting, and unstructured tailored jackets, one piece more charming than the one before it. He also introduced womenswear. The second to last look here, a sheer black number, was a standout, as was a floor length pencil skirt.
With Pharrell Williams’s show for Louis Vuitton kicking off the week, this season was bookended by collections that drew on India as a source of inspiration, and there were other clear references scattered throughout the week. “I think it just highlights the need for voices from our region and our part of the world,” Kumra said. “We’re lucky that we have this opportunity.”
On each seat at the show was a copy of Kumra’s latest visual essay, which he titled “How to Make It in India.” “It’s a triple entendre,” he explained. First, there’s the instinctive elegance, plus: “You know, we make clothes in India. And then there’s that TV show How To Make It In America, because there is that similar energy of hustling and making it work.” For all intents and purposes, Kumra is doing more than merely making it work. Could How To Make It In Paris? be his next book?
