At the Lakmé Fashion Week 2025 x FDCI, artisans take the runway

Designers Zaid Khatri, Amruta Vankar, Mubbasirah Khatri, Muskan Khatri, and Shakil Ahmed throughout the Design Craft Presents Artisan Designers of Somaiya Kala Vidya present within the twenty fifth yr of Lakmé Style Week 2025 at Jio World Conference Centre in Mumbai
| Picture Credit score: Good Shadows / FDCI x Lakmé Style Week / RISE Worldwide

Indian trend is getting into an period of quiet reckoning — one the place the silent arms behind couture’s most intricate weaves and prints are lastly entering into the sunshine. For many years, artisans remained the invisible scaffolding of Indian trend’s most-celebrated narratives. Now, the script is shifting. At Lakmé Style Week x FDCI’s March 2025 version, this shift felt not solely palpable however overdue too. In a particular present, titled Design Craft Presents Artisan Designers of Somaiya Kala Vidya, grasp craftspeople emerged not as footnotes however because the headline.

Established in 2014, Somaiya Kala Vidya (SKV), located in Anjar, Kutch, is a pioneering establishment that flips the script on how we view artisans and design. Based on the assumption that the custodians of India’s textile legacy deserve extra than simply seasonal patronage, SKV empowers conventional artisans with the instruments of contemporary design, branding, and entrepreneurship — with out asking them to desert their roots.

Not like city design faculties that always view craft via an outsider’s lens, SKV is embedded inside the artisan group. It affords structured, culturally delicate training to grasp artisans — lots of whom have inherited centuries-old strategies of weaving, dyeing, or embroidery. The curriculum, taught within the native language and tailor-made across the artisans’ calendars, balances aesthetics with market relevance.

A mannequin takes the runway throughout the Zaid Khatri present
| Picture Credit score:
Good Shadows / FDCI x Lakmé Style Week / RISE Worldwide

The runway bore witness to a robust confluence of custom, approach and self-expression anchored by 5 artisan-led labels: Ajrakh Gharana by Zaid Khatri, Alaicha by Amruta Vankar, Elysian by Mubbasirah Khatri, Musk by Muskan Khatri, and Neel Batik by Shakil Ahmed. Every assortment supplied a definite voice, rooted in heritage but unafraid to play with silhouette, color, and context.

With ajrakh because the centre of attraction, Zaid Khatri’s Everlasting Ajrakh assortment for his label Ajrakh Gharana was a journey from the previous to the current after which into the long run. It was a poetic reflection on time, layering ajrakh’s storied geometry with glossy, up to date tailoring. His work requested a poignant query: Can custom stretch into the long run with out shedding its soul? Judging by his restrained but evocative presentation — indigo jackets layered over fluid separates — the reply felt like a powerful sure.

Amruta Vankar’s Alaicha drew from her mashru weaving legacy, translating the tactile language of handloom into quiet luxurious. Her palette was earthy, her cuts clear — every look paid an ode to rhythm and repetition, the 2 issues each weaver is aware of intimately.

Amruta Vankar presents ‘Alaicha’ 
| Picture Credit score:
Good Shadows / FDCI x Lakmé Style Week / RISE Worldwide

Mubbasirah Khatri (the one feminine ajrakh artisan and artisan designer in Kutch) designed the Anatomy assortment for the label Elysian. Mubbasirah turned to ajrakh presenting a softer, dreamier tackle the resist-dye approach. There was romance in her folds — fluid clothes in pastel tones, dotted with the signature clusters of tie-dye that whispered of persistence and precision.

Muskan Khatri’s Thriller for the label Musk (spotlighting the tie and dye of the bandhani craft) introduced youthful bravado to the runway, with cropped jackets, flared trousers, and a intelligent conflict of patterns. Hers was a voice of defiance — proof that custom doesn’t must imply restraint. It could possibly flirt, insurgent, and nonetheless maintain on to its roots.

‘Elysian’ by Mubbasirah Khatri 
| Picture Credit score:
Good Shadows / FDCI x Lakmé Style Week / RISE Worldwide

The great thing about the normal batik craft was unveiled by Shakil Ahmed’s label Neel Batik for the gathering Custom to Fashionable. It was a placing interaction of daring hues and considerate silhouettes. Shades of vibrant purple punctuated the timeless palette of black and white, shifting collectively in fluid concord throughout items titled Saadla and Bepota.

Saris anchored the Indian line-up with quiet power, whereas the Western silhouettes carried a refined Indo-fusion sensibility. Textural play added depth to the gathering, with summary patterns drawn from Shakil’s personal Instagram images — remodeling digital inspiration into wearable artwork.

What united these 5 voices was not simply their connection to Kutch or their coaching at Somaiya Kala Vidya (SKV), however their refusal to be boxed into classes of craft or costume. These weren’t artisans-turned-designers. They had been designers — full cease — claiming house on their very own phrases.

Shakil Ahmed’s ‘Neel Batik’ 
| Picture Credit score:
Good Shadows / FDCI x Lakmé Style Week / RISE Worldwide

At a time when trend is raring to greenwash its picture with buzzwords like ‘handmade’ and ‘sustainable,’ this showcase supplied one thing rarer: authenticity with out appropriation. It re-centred the narrative across the individuals who have at all times stored Indian trend’s legacy alive — not in shiny lookbooks, however in dusty workshops, beneath the solar, dye-stained and dye-driven.

Muskan Khatri’s ‘Musk’
| Picture Credit score:
Good Shadows / FDCI x Lakmé Style Week / RISE Worldwide

By giving these voices a runway, Lakmé Style Week was not simply curating a present — it was correcting a long-standing omission. And because the applause rang out, it was clear: the way forward for Indian trend just isn’t about discovering the following development. It’s about returning to the roots, and at last, listening to the arms which have at all times identified the best way.