“I’m not in the business for money,” says designer who dressed Kendrik Lamar, has stores in New Delhi and New York City, eyes next boutique in Tokyo
IT’S a day before the first fashion show in India by Indian label Kartik Research. Kartik Kumra, the designer behind the label, is casting models and outfitting them at a spacious Andheri Studio. He’s styling the looks himself today, and suggests tying a neck-tie around a male model’s waist instead of a belt. “I have to do ties now, you know…because, well Zohran.”
From Lakme Fashion Week collection; photos by Manan Sheth
Kumra is speaking of Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s newly minted mayor, who wore a gold-embroidered Eri silk from Kartik Research to his widely watched inauguration in January 2026. Mamdani is hardly introducing the Indian designer to the world; Kartik Research is one of those hot new labels that’s on everyone’s lips right now. It has dressed Kendrick Lamar and Lewis Hamilton, and found itself making history as the first menswear designer from India to make it on the Paris Fashion Week calendar. Kumra, 26, looks like he just finished high school.
Kumra says he was home in Gurgaon when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020 and halted his undergraduate studies at the Ivy University of Pennsylvania. “I was back in and my mother and I visited several craft villages of India – we went to Ajrakhpur (Kutch) and Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh),” he says.
He was only 20 when he created Kartik Research (formerly called Karu Research) in 2021 with the idea of taking Indian craftsmanship into a global everyday wardrobe. “I was a fashion enthusiast as a consumer. I understood how Japanese brands took their heritage and built on it, making clothes you want to wear over and over again,” Kumra says. He has no formal fashion education. Kumra says he used to be a reseller of sneakers while at boarding school in the UK.
The pandemic ended up creating more opportunities for Kumra, as he says he had more time. “But it was odd to make friendships wearing a mask. And the lockdown of 2011 was much harsher,” he recalls.
The designer behind the label
Kumra’s mother Sujata used to be a career counsellor for students, and works with him full-time now. His father is the well-known management consultant Gautam Kumra. The family lives between Gurgaon and Singapore.
Kumra says he father was not too happy he was moving out of a secure, finance career. “No one works in fashion for money you know,” he tells me. But once the younger Kumra started selling from 10 Corso Como in Milan, the luxury menswear e-boutique Mr Porter, and Selfridges in London, his dad came around.
He calls his style “Indian future vintage”, adding, “It’s a little wonky, a little imperfect. Just don’t call it streetwear.” It was important for Kumra to find ways to add a little human touch to one’s wardrobe. To be able to wear beautiful things every day, and not just weddings, he adds. “It’s not super sentimental, just playful,” he says. Some of the names of his styles are taken from Indian words: Atma, Shanti, Rishikesh and Rabari.
Europe fell in love with his quilted jackets with kantha. “We worked with the same wholesale agency. We put our clothes on the right backs, like fashion podcasters. An agent spotted us and said we had something going,” he says. In the first season in 2022 itself, his revenues hit Rs 1 crore. “But like I said, I’m not in the business for the money.”
That said, in two years since his launch, he found himself a slot on the Paris calendar, and also opened two stores – the first in New Delhi in April 2024, and the second in Manhattan, New York City, in April 2025. How did he manage to finance these, we ask. “The store costs much less than a show. New York was a good financial decision, it was profitable right from the start. I used to do pop-ops and I think it was time,” he says.
Lakme Fashion Week collection details
When his stylist texted him that the genius rapper Kendrick Lamar had worn a jacket, Kumra says he was with his friends at the college bar. “I get happy with things for like 10 minutes. After that, I’m like, what’s next?”
Kumra is also a semi-finalist for the second time in the prominent LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, the winner receives Euros 400,000 and a one-year mentorship, while two runners up receive Euros 200,000 and the same mentorship. Previous winners have included Jacquemus, Grace Wales Bonner (currently menswear creative director at Hermes), and Demna Gvasalia (formerly Balenciaga, now at Gucci).
Much of Indian fashion today is ready-to-wear made from artisanal crafts, vegetable dyes and human hands. What makes Kartik Research different? “It’s really the level you do it with. We have a very coherent idea and a very distinct aesthetic,” he explains. “A lot of people say they work in craft, but have verticals that require factories.”
Kumra says he enjoys working with craftsmen. He sources bhujodi from the legendary Shamji Valji Vankar, and handloom denim from a private weaver in Kutch who weaves indigo in both the warp and weft. “It’s always less business, more staying for dinner.” He says Himalayan wool is very tough to work with and make it look premium, but his label has managed it.
With Ralph Lauren’s jhumkas, Prada’s Kolhapuri slippers, and Louis Vuitton’s Snakes & Ladders runway, is India a moodboard for western fashion these days? “The interest in India is definitely growing. My biggest clients are here, not many people but definitely bigger numbers. The Western consumer isn’t here specifically for a ‘Made in India' product, but for the story.”
From the Lakme Fashion Week runway
Kartik Research has also launched a small women’s wear line. “Nearly 30 percent of my menswear was being bought by women. But they always needed a shorter arm or a narrower shoulder,” he reasons. Kumra says he’s looking forward to opening a store in Tokyo, and a whole bunch of “interesting collabs” lined up for 2027.
He says he has never worn Indian designers himself before. Kumra is not excited by India’s wedding industry at all. “I’ll make an embroidered shirt for someone on request once in a while. But honestly, the wedding industry is annoying. Everyone wants to cosplay a celebrity for a day.”
