In a world of fleeting trends, Aseem Kapoor crafts narratives that transcend time – where history, art, and fabric entwine to create a symphony of controlled chaos and poetic balance.
Aseem Kapoor’s world is one of layered storytelling, a beautiful tandem between the past and present, where art and textile become one. His designs do not merely clothe; they narrate, transport, and evoke emotions that are as tactile as the textures he so masterfully crafts.
But the process of creation is never linear. Kapoor’s signature lies in controlled chaos – a harmonious collision of elements that shouldn’t work together but somehow do, spectacularly. His creative process is meditative, immersive, and instinctive. “I work with a lot of pictures. I leave them for some time, let them sit in front of me for months, and that’s when a collection comes out,” he explains. His studio, much like his mind, is a trove of collected fragments – pictures, objects, textiles, paintings – all waiting for their moment of synthesis.
The genesis of Mural, his latest collection, is as evocative as the pieces themselves. “From childhood, I always loved layering. Layering of things always inspired me, which kept me going,” he says. It was during a summer sojourn in Spain that inspiration struck – the beauty of Byzantine murals, their weathered surfaces whispering stories of time’s passage. “What inspired me to create this collection is the ageing. I have always loved it when things are lived in, and I think that also makes art very individualistic. It shows age, it shows the touch, and that kind of inspires me in everything – be it paint, textiles, or embroidery.”
This brand is not limited to clothes. It’s going to enter home, menswear, kidswear, events – it’s going to be a crazy amount of things because this is just the beginning.
In Mural, Kapoor ventures into a more subdued yet equally profound territory – exploring pastel hues, a departure from his signature dark palettes. “I had my daughter, Mira, and suddenly, my world was filled with pastel-coloured gifts. That made me rethink colour in a way I hadn’t before,” he shares. The very nature of Kapoor’s work resists predictability. “Design is not A, B, C, D. Sometimes, E comes first. That’s the fun of it.” His ability to extract poetry from the past and imbue it into modern silhouettes defines his brand’s ethos, one that celebrates delicious ambiguity, as he puts it. He revels in the unexpected – a print born from an overlooked texture, an embroidery that surfaces at the most unlikely moment. “With experience, you just know what you can take. You take a colour from somewhere, a print base from somewhere else altogether. It’s about how you feel in that moment.”
The Aseem Kapoor label’s design aesthetics resonate across generations and geographies. His clothes, adored by an 18-year-old in a sculpted lehenga as much as by a grandmother in a flowing kaftan, transcend age, body type, and background. “Our aim is to always make a woman look beautiful and feel confident. I want people to have fun in these clothes,” he says, with an earnestness that is both rare and refreshing. This philosophy is rooted in deep listening. “I listen to a lot of people. Customers may not always articulate what they want, but they will tell you how they feel. My job as a designer is to interpret that and find a solution in my language.” This empathy extends to his craftsmanship, where human imperfection is celebrated rather than corrected. “I never dictate how a craftsperson should do something. I work with what they do best and bring it into my colour story, my artwork. Imperfection is perfect – it is still done by a human hand. That’s the beauty of it.”
If you think only like an artist, you won’t survive. You have to make sure your collection is indulgent enough for people to want it – only then can you create the next one.
Yet, creation is not without its hurdles. Like any artist, Kapoor grapples with creative blocks. But he has found his way of navigating them – by stepping away. “When I hit a creative block, I stop what I’m doing and move to something else. I know in the back of my head it’s there, and the moment I find a solution, I go back to it.” It is an organic rhythm, one that is often fueled by his wife and co-founder, Pooja Kapoor. “She works on silhouettes, I work on surfaces. When I’m stuck, she helps me, and when she’s stuck, I help her. A perspective that you trust is the most important thing.”
Kapoor’s world is a carefully curated collage of experiences, textures, and narratives. If he weren’t a designer, he would have been an artist, a creator of maximalist, layered compositions. “I don’t see anything minimal. I see everything in collages,” he confesses. This sensibility is what makes his garments more than just clothes; they are living, breathing works of art that tell a story long after they’ve left the atelier. And that, perhaps, is the true essence of Aseem Kapoor – the ability to make time stand still, even as fashion moves forward.