The new generation of designers is stitching the next chapter of Indian fashion – authentically and on their own terms. We caught up with Somya Lochan of Quarter, Abhishek Shinde of Abhichiq, and Yash Patil of That Antiquepiece to uncover their vision, roots, and what’s next.

ABHICHIQ

FL: How would you describe Abhichiq’s DNA to someone experiencing the brand for the first time?

AS: Abhichiq is where craft meets feeling. It is where slow fashion meets personal style. We create clothes that feel lived-in, are made with care, and are meant to be worn with ease. Every piece carries a bit of memory and emotion, and is always made by hand with purpose.

FL: Walk us through your creative process. How do themes like ‘sunny Sicily’ translate into fabric choices and design elements?

AS: ‘Ciao’ actually began the day I watched Call Me By Your Name, it just stayed with me. I remember thinking, “What if I could make pieces that lived in that world?” I’ve always loved curating a travel wardrobe – easy, personal, a bit dreamy, and in a way, that’s what this is too. And then came Sicily; its colours, textures, and charm pulled me right in. We played with hand-embroidered fruits, tile-inspired block prints, and soft textures that feel like linen drying in the sun. I kept the silhouettes relaxed and let the textiles speak. For me, it always starts with a feeling. The story leads, and I follow.

FL: How do you see the brand contributing to the broader narrative of Indian fashion on the global stage?

AS: I want to be part of the shift that shows Indian fashion isn’t just for occasions. It can be slow, thoughtful, and feel like easy luxury – perfect for holidays, escapes, and days when you want to feel like yourself. With Abhichiq, it is about leading with craft, but also with feeling, ease, and a sense of self.

QUARTER

FL: What inspired the inception of Quarter, and how does the brand’s name encapsulate its core philosophy?

SL: It was probably during one of my cluster visits in Gujarat, around 2022 or 2023, when I had been travelling to different clusters across India – perhaps in Mundra, while working with Batik – that I noticed something really striking. Above every artisan’s table, there was a board that mentioned the year they had joined. Some read 1963, 1964, while others said 2003, 2004, and so on. It made me realise that some of these craftspeople belong to families with 9, 10, even 12 generations of artisans, all working on the same craft. And then there are the artisans, the designers, the tailors, and the consumers – everybody’s bringing one quarter to the table, and that’s how we became Quarter. If you look at our logo, it’s a cuboid, and a quarter of a cuboid is still a cuboid. So even if it’s a quarter, it’s whole in itself.

FL: Quarter’s designs often reinterpret traditional motifs with a geometric twist. How do you balance preserving cultural narratives with introducing modern design elements?

SL: In terms of the evolution of crafts, I feel like it’s such an ongoing process, right? Crafts are meant to evolve. They’ve always evolved. You can tell so much about a region – its culture, economy, people, even the temperature or quality of life – just by looking at the textiles. What we’re doing today is simply making them a little more relevant to our process – it’s our interpretation of something that’s already alive. We’re working with the same set of artisans who have been creating textiles for generations. We’re not here to engineer anything – we’re here to create with them. We’re artists co-creating with artists.

FL: Each Quarter piece seems to carry an intentional stillness. Is there a philosophy that inspires your collections?

SL: It all comes from how I see the world – the things I notice, the almost comic element that exists around us. Especially in India, it’s almost impossible not to observe that, not to absorb it, and eventually, for it to reflect in your work. The stillness in my creations comes from within, and it just finds its way into the garments. I always say, any creator who’s making something is almost stalking the world in a way. It’s a conversation – these pieces are our words. It becomes a dialogue with the people wearing the garments, the ones seeing them, touching them, and talking about them. And if there’s stillness in it, it’s probably just an extension of that ongoing conversation.

THAT ANTIQUEPIECE

FL: You often describe yourself more as an artist than a designer. How does this perspective influence your creative process and the pieces you produce?

YP: It helps me build pieces that go beyond just clothing – they become more meaningful and mindful, and are thoughtfully researched. I’d like my pieces to become modern heirlooms. I don’t envision releasing tons and tons of styles that are season-specific, but rather pieces that have a soul in them. For that to happen, these styles go through multiple trials and errors even before we release them into the market. We work on building a library of styles – our classics – that will keep reinventing and re-emerging in versions 2.0 to 10.0 and beyond, over the years.

FL: Corsetry plays a significant role in your collections. What draws you to this particular garment, and how do you adapt its traditional form for contemporary audiences?

YP: The corset is a very technical piece of clothing and has gone through multiple iterations over decades and even centuries. But the reason it remains relevant is because it keeps reinventing itself. Even though it’s seen as a historic piece of clothing, while the bones of it remain intact, everything else we do with it makes it feel fresh and relevant. The construction of these old pieces fascinates me – it’s like architecture, with so many bones and structures moving effortlessly along the body. It takes a lot of time and precision to understand, and you only get better over time, which is precisely why I still draft my own corset patterns. I’m still learning, I’d say.

“It’s not about replicating or reviving the past – it’s about reimagining how its essence can live on in today’s world.”

FL: If That Antiquepiece had a manifesto, what would its first line be?

YP: Modern heirlooms that’ll stand the test of time.