Meet 6 Indian Origin Designers Who’re Making Waves Globally

Redefining fashion with heritage, innovation, and unapologetic vision

Kanica Joshi

Meet 6 Indian Origin Designers Who’re Making Waves Globally

There’s always that one designer in every fashion line-up who designs questions instead of clothes. Questions like: Why is a poplin shirt not as dramatic as a tulle ballgown? Why can’t structure be sensual? Why must tailoring be synonymous with masculinity? Meet Delhi and New York based Ikshit Pande, the soft-spoken yet highly opinionated creative force behind Quod – a label that walks the line between art and fashion.

Born in the ‘90s in Nainital, raised on convent school architecture and cassette tapes of Britney and Christina, Ikshit grew up thinking fashion was "something very odd and different" – a far cry from career-worthy. “I remember waiting for months to get tapes from the US,” he recalls. “Low-rise jeans were the first thing that shocked me, and I was somehow drawn to them. I had no idea this was called fashion.”

A Low-Rise Origin Story

Ikshit’s first career spanned eight years in marketing and advertising – “I wanted to be a Chief Marketing Officer,” he says – but something about that dream started feeling too… boxed in. Turning 30, he had the epiphany Gen Zs today post about on Notes app screenshots: “I realised I was living by a playbook,” he says. “If I don’t do it now, I never will.” And so, he applied to Parsons, originally for interior design. “I’d geared everything – portfolio, statement of purpose – but for interiors. But just a day before the deadline, I realized that everything I’d ever loved came from fashion and pop culture. So I switched tracks the day before, rewrote everything and applied for fashion design instead.”

At Parsons, he was a late bloomer with a marketing background – “It took me two months just to learn how to thread a sewing machine,” he laughs – but that hindsight came with clarity. “I had a point of view. I knew what good design looked like to me. That helped me question things more freely.”

Poplin, Persona, and Pushing Back

What does Quod look like, you ask? Imagine a cotton poplin shirt with sleeves so perfectly structured, they practically hold opinions of their own. “We call it our signature wolfing sleeve shirt,” says Ikshit. “It’s our most loved piece. Simple fabric, elevated through shape.”

His approach to fashion doesn’t begin with gender, but personas. “I think about who a person is – not their gender,” he explains. “I’m not a very gendered dresser myself. I like putting on a skirt now and then.” That clarity comes through in Quod’s visual language too – bold, architectural, but never vulgar. “My upbringing brings in a certain conservativeness,” he notes. “The clothes are bold and sexy, but never sexual. There’s a fine line.” Design inspirations? They're delightfully non-mainstream. “Tilda Swinton. Lorde. Robyn,” he lists. “I’m drawn to people with a strong point of view – even if I don’t imagine them in my clothes.”

The Quod Code

Despite the otherworldly quality of his visuals, Ikshit is refreshingly grounded in how he runs Quod. A business graduate at heart, he’s figured out the math of creative longevity: “I do multiple things outside of Quod so that the brand can stay creatively fulfilling. We don’t give in to commercial pressure.” And the campaigns that make you want to walk into a museum wearing his clothes? Surprisingly democratic. “It’s never just me,” he admits. “I collaborate with stylists, directors, friends – I know what I bring, and I also know what Idon’t. It’s always 50-50.” Ask him who shaped his design philosophy and he name-drops Rei Kawakubo, naturally. “Comme des Garçons taught me that possibility ends only where thinking ends. That’s always stayed with me.”

But perhaps the real key to Quod is that Pande doesn’t make fashion for shock or spectacle. He makes fashion for the people who refuse to be typecast. Who knows that a skirt on a man can mean just comfort – and that a shirt, if tailored right, can be architecture.

FULL STORY: GRAZIA