Why aren’t more Indian designers collaborating with brands?

While the west has played with the oversaturated idea of brand partnerships, Indian designers are just starting to step into the experimental world of collaborations

Let’s acknowledge that the magic word of this year is ‘collaboration’. In the recent past, several major brands have teamed up with other brands to come out with limited-edition collections that usually come with hefty price tags. Think Gucci with Adidas, or Fendi with Versace, or Louis Vuitton with Off-White, or Jacquemus with Nike, or Balenciaga with, yes, Adidas again.

In the era where every creative individual is multi-hyphenated, the idea of joining hands with your ‘competitor’ has reaped successful results for many brands. When Dior teamed up with Nike for 13,000 pairs of sneakers–each at $2,000–in an online draw, it was noted that more than five million people registered on the brand’s website to get their hands on these limited pieces.

While this idea of collaborations has burgeoned in the west, why has it had a slow landing in the Indian fashion industry? We speak to designers and couturiers to understand if this new phase of the fashion is adaptive in the Indian market or not.

India’s small collaborative bubble

Internationally, collaborations have grabbed eyeballs and headlines for years now, pioneered by Marc Jacobs who first introduced the contemporary art scene in 2001 at Louis Vuitton by collaborating with Stephen Sprouse and Takashi Murakami. When it comes to fast fashion, H&M established a successful dynamic between a retail chain and high fashion brands when it first made Karl Lagerfeld accessible to a wider consumer base in 2004. Since then the Swedish giant has collaborated with multiple luxury brands and designers such as Comme des Garçons, Balmain and Giambattista Valli. Only recently did it team up with Indian designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee for a limited collection. In 2019, Japanese retail chain Uniqlo unveiled a kurta collection in collaboration with Rina Singh of Eka, adding to the impressive list of designers they’ve collaborated with, including JW Anderson, Theory and, most recently, Marni. And let’s not forget the numerous sneaker collaborations we have seen in the last few years —Louis Vuitton x Nike, Jeremy Scott x Adidas, New Balance x Kith, the list goes on.

Thanks to the success of these projects, the term ‘collaboration’ has become a business and marketing tack-tick in the west. When brands join creative hands and design vocabularies, the combination is a win-win for both. But why hasn’t it found a foothold with Indian designers and brands yet?

“Collaborations aren’t an overnight call but a well-planned strategy which both parties need to agree to. A collaboration should leave a large mark, rather than being a hygiene marketing gimmick, which is precisely why we don’t see them often,” says Shantanu and Nikhil Mehra, who were the first Indian designers to collaborate with sportswear giant Adidas in 2010. Since then the duo have lent their design sensibilities to a number of brands, including HP laptops and, most recently, Obeetee—manufacturers of hand-knotted and hand-tufted rugs in India.

While international luxury houses are joining forces with each other now more than ever, in India we’ve seen few, once-a-year kind of instances of designer collaborations grabbing eyeballs. In 2014, couture designer Manish Arora gave his colourful contemporary twist to Amrapali’s traditional jewellery. Sabyasachi made headlines in 2017 for collaborating with footwear icon Christian Louboutin. In 2019, resort wear designers Shivan & Narresh teamed up with Heads Up For Tails to launch a luxury pets wear line. Earlier this year, jewellery designer Suhani Parekh of Misho surprised everyone by collaborating with coffee brand Araku (details of which you can read here). Designer Payal Singhal believes that this ‘trend,’ which has worked in favour of international brands for decades, started gaining momentum in India in the last ten years. But it is only now that designers are realising that collaborations are the new currency for the fashion industry. “With collaborations, fashion becomes a democratised commodity that reaches newer audience segments and helps increase your product offering,” says Singhal, who, in the past, has teamed up with Bombay Shirt Company, retail brand Indya, home décor label Marshalls, footwear label Fizzy Goblet and, most recently, with jewellery designer Sangeeta Boochra.

While there is monetary power and glory in collaborations (Miu Mui x New Balance sneakers came with a price tag of $700, while Virgil Abloh’s LV x Nike Air Force 1 trainers were auctioned for $20,000), for Indian designers it goes beyond just grabbing headlines.

Purpose of collabs

Luxury designer pieces at affordable price points have caught the attention of consumers and brand loyalists alike. While in many cases it may yield immediate financial results, for the Mehras it’s necessary for the growth of their brand as it acts as a getaway to explore their own work with a fresh perspective. “When we joined hands with Obeetee, our design ethos expanded. As couturiers we’ve been creating contemporary silhouettes with drapes, embroideries and details. There is a structure, shape and depth to a cloth. But when a collaboration like this [with Obeetee] came our way, we realised the need to break the stereotypical notion and bring modernity and nostalgia together in this design process, which, from a design perspective, is a whole different ball game,” says the duo, who in 2021 itself collaborated with smartphone companies like Vivo and RealMe.

Like the Mehras, Indian footwear designer Laksheeta Govil of Fizzy Goblet also shared similar views. “All my collaborations have creative concepts and it was very fun and exciting to explore all the aspects of creating stylish and modern juttis. It helps us to get the aesthetics of other brands into ours. The idea of creating something together for our clients is always interesting. You get to tap into different customer groups and reach a wider audience, give them a new product which helps grow the business. For example, our collaboration with Tribe by Amrapali was a unique concept of jewellery coming together with footwear which also gave Amrapali to explore a new product category,” says Govil, who, apart from Amrapali and Payal Singhal, has also teamed up with designer Rahul Mishra for a collection of embroidered juttis. “The best part about collaborations is that while you are lending your strengths, you are also reaping the benefits from the other brands' strengths, in terms of product expertise, manufacturing and channel strength,” Singhal adds. The fashion industry, which was earlier a closely guarded community, has evolved to a point where boundaries between creative territories are blurring and even colliding.

Finding the right partnership

Unlike on a dating app, finding the perfect collaborative match is not as easy as swiping right. There are many factors that need to be considered. For Govil, it’s about matching aesthetics when it comes to working with another designer and creating a unique product altogether. Singhal, who has done over 20 collaborations in the past, agrees with Govil when it comes to aesthetics. ​​“Our collaboration decisions are well thought out. We have an internal process of identifying product categories we want to work with and the brands within each of these categories which resonate and match with our aesthetic, brand promise and target audience,” explains Singhal. “Business growth, category expansion and channel presence are performance indicators within the guard rails of brand aesthetic, target audience appeal and product synergy.​ ​The most important thing for our brand when we collaborate is to think about the synergy of the two brands. Not only do I have to like the product aesthetically, but also resonate with the ethos behind the product category and brand whom we are collaborating with,” she adds.

Resonating with each other’s core values is also something that the Mehras look for when teaming up with other brands. The duo gives the example of their collaboration with Royal Enfield from last year. “In our respective journeys, both the brands [Shantanu & Nikhil and Royal Enfield] are already established and known for rigour and strength in their designs. When two ideologies like such amalgamate so fluently, we know we have the right collaboration in our hands.”

Not merely a trend

In the recent past, Sabyasachi has collaborated with Starbucks for designer coffee mugs and Balenciaga teamed up with Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team for face shields. This raises the question whether these quick collaborative marriages between brands that are poles apart is a trend that is hyper-utilised and overused. Singhal, however, thinks otherwise. “In my opinion, collaborations are here to stay. It’s simple logic that when two entities come together bringing their respective know-how and strengths, the combination is exciting. The consumer is able to see an offering which is differentiated, gives more value and brings together the power of the brands that collaborate,” she concludes.

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