My brand is respected in India because everyone panders to the rich; we do not: Sabyasachi

Just back from the
Met Gala
, where he dressed Shah Rukh Khan; attending luxury conferences in London and New York; picking up the Most Impactful Asian in Arts, Fashion and Lifestyle award at the Gold House Gala in Los Angeles and jetting off for speeches at
Harvard
and now Oxford,
Sabyasachi
, founder-director of the eponymous label, is having a busy 25th anniversary year. He spoke to Kanika Gahlaut at his new office in Kanak Building, Kolkata, about his journey so far and what it takes to build an Indian luxury brand. Edited excerpts:
It's been 25 years of your label. At that time, fashion had a certain type of people. You were not typical.
Fashion was very elitist then, and continues to be. Fashion in
India
was rich people making rich clothes for their rich friends. Today, wealth is more widespread geographically. Rich has varied meanings. Which is why new players have entered the market and these new customers don't have existing relationships with older designers. But the game is the same; to succeed you need to be friends with your customer. That is something I had resolved never to do from the beginning.
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Undo
Though you were an outsider, the industry accepted you. It gave you the right placings.
I fought for it too. We didn't have much. My grandmother told us, 'Just because we are poor does not mean we cannot have standards.' The middle and the lower class were told, 'This was not your scene, you don't belong.' We heard this not just of the fashion industry, but of entrepreneurship in general. As kids, if we wanted to do something audacious, our parents asked, 'Who do you think you are? Tata, Birla?' Starting a business was seen as a gamble, not an opportunity; and we were never to gamble. I always defied classism inside my head. When I was growing up, I didn't feel poor. Now that I'm rich, I don't feel rich.
You've gained a reputation for being reticent…
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Reticence is when you are not available to people emotionally. I'm just not available transactionally. I don't like to waste my time. If I don't meet interesting people, I'd rather keep to myself, be at home and watch Netflix. I'll demystify something for you. I'm not an intellectual. People say I am, but I make no pretence.
Are you cerebral?
I'm sensitive to things, people, influences.
Okay, let me get to it another way. So you don't get affected by changing fortunes, there is a sense of being untouched. Then there's the reticent label. Then there's your signature style that is slightly melancholic, in the way you run shades of brown through colours, a soberness in joy.
I am a loner, an idealist and, in many ways, a big romantic. I am also a massive drifter. I have no anchorage, no home. Having no sense of place or people allows me to absorb influences. When you are a drifter, you don't attach yourself to a particular identity, you gather them along the way. But what doesn't change is your core.
I'm the designer who's done the most varied amount of work in this country: from fashion to anti-fashion; from glamour, bodycon, sex bomb to organic and tribal; from cosmopolitan to corporate dressing, from sophisticated to bohemian, from vintage elegance to travel chic. Let's talk about fabrics: khadi, brocade, wool, leather, acetate, plastic, paper, polyester, recycled nylon, rayon, neoprene—I've used it all. My colours vary from vintage to metallic, from earth tones to neon. Yet people call me repetitive and rightly so—I have an unshakeably strong core. I'm not limited by politics, boundaries, geographies. I define myself as a human first, Indian second and Calcuttan third.
I'm not from a time when there were conversations on appropriation. Appropriation for me is a celebration. I can go anywhere in the world, and pick up something and appreciate its influence in my work. If I don't have the agency to speak the truth, I'd rather not speak at all. In trying to be politically correct, we say things we don't mean, or mean nothing at all. When you become successful because of your school of thought, everyone celebrates you; but when more becomes more, people will start to crucify you. Criticism has become such a spectator sport; everyone is now a professional critic.
When you control a market, because of the scale to get there, you become vulnerable. There are so many mouths to feed that you have to keep the business churning. The market starts dictating what you should do. You lose your identity. But some of us wake up and see the bigger picture—that if I don't retain who I am, I'll disappear from the landscape. People have always paid me for my mind, not my hand. If I borrow their mind and use my hand, I'm no longer a brand; I'm just a karigar. That's why I stopped customising. The fundamental philosophy of an artist is to sell your mind, not your skill. The mind must be above the skill. Otherwise, you become a service provider, not a solution provider. Designers are not supposed to be service providers. The smartest thing I did in the last five years was to get off all social media. With all the noise in the world, there is no scope for original work if you don't protect your mind. I've learned to compete with only myself.
My first relationship is with the people who work for my company, to ensure they get their salaries. My second relationship is with my customers, who help me earn my bread. Finally comes my interaction with the press. Many designers have built their relationships first with the press, second with customers and third with their backend—a recipe for an unsustainable business.
The mind has to be fearless to do the best body of work. For many, fashion means a quick entry into fame; and that's where the cookie crumbles.
Designers who are level-headed build lasting businesses, like
Ralph Lauren
. Their successes do not depend on the whims of the press or the tastes of the times. One must understand where art needs to end and commerce must begin, and recognise its equal importance in the reverse. In my fashion business, I will never let art take over commerce. But I have an art foundation, where I never let commerce overtake art. Fashion is a commodity business masquerading as art. You can't sell 10,000 pieces of a garment and call it art. The Mona Lisa is art; putting her on a T-shirt is a commodity. I understand that balance and I'm not anguished by walking the line.
When catering to your global market and to the domestic one, do you have to change your moves?
The culture, DNA and philosophy of the brand will never change. Within that realm, if I can create a product that talks to a particular audience in a particular geography, I'll create the product. For instance, in New York, I make clothes climate-appropriate, with solid colours or a lens of patterns attuned to a Western eye. What I will not compromise on is the way the clothes are made, how we source the fabrics and the amount of hand-work we have to do. My international business is small but growing because I am not pandering to the market. When I first went to New York, I did not succeed.
The press and merchants all had their opinions: Oh, this is too Indian, that silhouette won't work, it's too heavy, the colour is too strong, get a Western pattern maker. But they didn't know my customer, she didn't exist yet. [Fashion editor] Suzy Menkes wisely told me to return to India, build a brand and then come back on my terms. Now I only give clothes on consignment. I said, you give me the space, I'll decide the assortment. Everything started selling out. If people don't understand your work, or if people don't accept your work, just chill, and realise that it may take you five years, it could take you 25 years, but stay the path. In the decades since I first showed in New York, the clothes haven't changed, attitudes have.
Initially you faced opposition in domestic and international market.
In those days, my clothes became successful in India because people were scared of not being perceived as intellectuals. That was the chink in their armour; they had a lot of money but yearned for respect. Because the press wrote about me as an intellectual, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy: if I wear his clothes, I'll look like an intellectual. My clothes were bought without understanding whether they liked them or not; by buying Sabyasachi, they were buying culture. Eventually, people understood the merit of the clothes and started buying for their true value.
Post-liberalisation, people were trying to see how we would sell our culture and the press wrote on everyone. You are arguably the biggest critical and commercial success of that time.
Some customers bought my clothes because they genuinely liked them; others because of the optics. It made me realise you cannot base your brand on people's opinion; most of them have none. Consequently, criticism has never, never bothered me. The only time I was flustered was the Vidya Balan debacle at Cannes. I had styled her in a sari at a time when India only wanted to see glamorous, fashion-forward and modern style, which at the time meant western gowns. Young actors had burst onto the scene giving Indians their first taste of what the international Indian star could look like. Vidya looked beautiful, she did not necessarily look fashionable. But India wanted fashion, superstardom; India wanted to win.
Even Aishwarya Rai was in a sari and criticised at the time. Now she's adored for it.
It's time that determines perception. We have moved to a sense of nationalism now. There was a time when India wanted to be perceived as global. Now we want to celebrate national strength. It flusters me because I have never changed, I will never stop doing the sari for the red carpet. Even today my mandate with actresses on the red carpet is simple. I will make you an outfit if you wear a sari, because I'm an Indian designer.
What do you think about India's relationship with luxury and its evolvement in the post-liberalisation and now post-influencer age?
India has a troubled relationship with the West because of the way we were ruled. We felt we were second-, third-class citizens. Today, we feel not just a sense of belonging, but ownership. It translates visually into clothes, and a bit of political assertiveness through clothing is not such a bad thing.
What has changed in India is our blind awe of western luxury.
You are talking about post-globalisation disillusionment. Now it's post-globalised cynicism.
The Indian customer is very smart. There's a misnomer that Indians shop cheap. Indians shop value. If you give them something expensive, and they see value in it, they'll buy. If you sell the same product in every single duty-free around the world and try to pass it off as rarefied luxury, it's not logical. How can you push a logical person to become illogical?
You mean like Shah Rukh Khan is the last of the stars? What are stars?
They are distant and they sparkle. The most important part of stardom is being inaccessible. Earlier, stars in this country had a veil, a purdah—you never got to see them. The stars only came out at night. Now, all day long, you see them on Instagram; some only exist there. Scarcity creates demand. You can't be available in 10,000 stores and say you are exclusive. Today people do not want to buy some of the most coveted bags in the world. I don't want to spend a lot of money buying a bag that 50 of my friends already have. Does it make me feel exclusive? Absolutely not. How can billion-dollar brands with international distribution be exclusive? If every important neighbourhood has one of your stores, you can't claim rarity. In many ways, luxury does not exist, only the marketed notion of luxury.
Some say we will go back to bespoke, custom-made.
There will be a price correction. Brands will realise that to retain the halo of luxury, they need to scale back. What really defines luxury is wanting something you don't have.
And it makes luxury so relative, actually.
It is relative, for some people, luxury is just confidence. So if you buy a product that gives you confidence—social, political, anything—that's luxury. Luxury has to make you feel good from within. You build a luxury brand by creating a great product, but also by creating a great philosophy of business. A brand I truly admire is Hermès. They have created a business by creating a culture. In Hermès, they will take all the time in the world to create a good product. Aesthetically you might differ from the product, but you can't fault the integrity of its creation. When you build the right culture, you build the right respect. People buy your product because they respect your integrity, since most people don't have it. We gravitate towards what we are not. We surround ourselves with things that complete us. My brand is respected in India because everybody panders to the rich here; we do not. We don't customise. I pay 100% tax. If you haven't earned your customers' respect, you have not built a luxury brand. Integrity makes a product sell.
What people don't understand is the deeper insight into why a customer shops. They want to buy something that reflects who they are, their values or aspirations. It's like going to a detox centre where you're buying something to heal you from inside.
I didn't understand my stardom for a long time. Early in my career, everybody wanted to talk to me about Bollywood. At that point, I made the actors wear Sabyasachi and they all said, 'Oh, Aishwarya looks so good in Cannes', and this and that. Then came Band Baajaa Bride and the big celebrity weddings. Many women came to me and said, 'When my daughter gets married, I want her to wear a
Sabya
.' Now the narrative has completely changed, everyone I meet, from all over the world, shares one thing with me: 'You make us so proud.'
Are you saying product, integrity and creativity are different things?
You can have creativity, and you can have a great product, but the most important thing that binds them together is integrity. Integrity is the biggest luxury in the world today because it is so rare. Sabyasachi was built on 25 years of integrity. And to hold your integrity for 25 years and not falter is a very tough thing. During the pandemic we were the first to shut, the last to open. Not a single person in my company got a pink slip.
What did you do in that time? Did you create?
Stayed at home. Paid salaries. I loved to cook. We had 80 buses going every day to pick up people and bring them to work. I did not allow a single person to come in public transport. We hired a cook for a year and turned the entire terrace into a restaurant. All the food was sanitised. We had a quarantine centre—if anybody had to leave, upon return they had to stay in quarantine for three days. When they were declared Covid-free, they were allowed back to work.
You've dressed a lot of women. What do you think about women? Have they changed?
I was raised by women—my two grandmothers, my mother, my mother's sister. I learned that women took unflinching responsibility. That men didn't. I wanted to design clothing. There was resistance. How can a man do a profession that's meant for ladies? So my relationship with women is not one of love, but of empathy. I think I understand women because I've experienced similar challenges. I think women make better women's wear designers. A man can only imagine what it is to be in a woman's body. Because of that liability, I constantly surround myself with women to get their point of view. I was not born beautiful. I'm an ordinary man. I don't look a certain way. My body is not a certain way. I struggled with my body and selfesteem. I've struggled in a world where a lot of people have a quicker right of way if they look a certain way. So I had to compensate for my lack of being beautiful with my cerebral strength. I have learnt from my own body as a man to feel that a woman will not feel her best every day. When you approach the human body and your customer through empathy and sensitivity, you'll want to make clothes that empower them to look their best even if they are not feeling their best. I don't make clothes that are difficult for women to live in. The best compliment I get: men tell me they love to see their wife in a Sabya.
Many Sabyasachi purchases are family affairs. A very successful female CEO asked me to keep a sari aside and said, 'I want to come back with my husband and show it to him.' We all thought: she's such a powerful woman, can't she buy a sari by herself? So I asked politely, and she said, 'I'm buying a Sabya. He wants to participate.'
If you were a designer's oracle, do you see a different market, a different Indian designer in the future?
My generation has seen the maximum change: from LP to iPod, from landline to Nokia to
iPhone
and now we have landed at AI. We have moved from the age of information to the age of influence and now the age of intelligence. The next frontier will be moving from intelligence to wisdom. The most valuable commodity in the age of wisdom will be humanity. Any business that encapsulates the spirit of human beings will find future success.
AI will make everything very efficient; but AI will also make everything homogenous. Your differentiator will be your legacy, your story, your product and your craft. Those without the backend of human craft will be pushed out. With AI, the mediocre brands will die. Brands that hold on to integrity and humanity will be the biggest brands. They might not be big in economic scale; but they will be the most important in terms of influence. India has a lot of scope for this. Humanity is here, craft is here, human skills are here. The government is talking about skill development. I will put forward one thing: Skill preservation.
We also need to pay attention to human connections. People are suffering because human connections have become poor. It's loneliness. There was a big socialite who came to buy jewellery at the Mumbai store. She came six times, every time getting dressed up to see the jewellery and decide if she wanted to buy it. I felt maybe she came to the store because people would talk to her, because she was lonely. Perhaps she uses the idea of coming to the store as an excuse to be in touch with humanity.

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Has Kareena Kapoor's Solitaire Wedding Ring Become A Cult Symbol For The Brides Of Today To Get Similar Wedding Rings? View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kareena Kapoor Khan (@kareenakapoorkhan) Sunita Shekhawat completely agrees, "Kareena Kapoor's solitaire ring definitely sparked admiration and set a trend, especially among modern brides who appreciate timeless elegance. The solitaire's simplicity combined with its classic appeal makes it a coveted choice. While each bride wants something unique, Kareena's ring has certainly inspired many to embrace understated sophistication in their wedding jewellery." View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sunita Shekhawat (@sunita_shekhawat_jaipur) Aditi Daga tells NDTV a different tale on this matter, "It probably set a benchmark for clean, classic design. But today's brides want more than replication. Many still gravitate toward solitaire silhouettes, but they're adding personal touches like hidden halos, coloured side stones, vintage-inspired galleries, and meaningful engravings." Speaking of Celebrities, Comment On How Gemstones Are Taking Centre stage on International Red Carpet View this post on Instagram A post shared by BVLGARI Official (@bvlgari) Aditi Daga tells NDTV, "What we're seeing on global red carpets is a return to jewellery with soul. Gemstones are stepping into the spotlight not just for their beauty, but for their power to communicate individuality, heritage and intention. When Priyanka adorns herself in emeralds or when Diljit pairs a s herwani with emeralds and tourmalines, it's not just fashion. It's storytelling. These choices reflect a deeper cultural confidence and a desire for luxury that feels personal rather than prescribed." View this post on Instagram A post shared by DILJIT DOSANJH (@diljitdosanjh) Golu Bhai and Ishmita Badalia also say, "The MET Gala 2025 was nothing short of a gemstone spectacle. From Priyanka's breathtaking emerald-studded neckpiece to Diljit's diamond-dripped ensemble, one thing was clear-bigger is back. Even celebrities are now leaning into the grandeur of high-carat diamonds. It's not just Hollywood; Bollywood too has caught the fever. Diamonds have officially become the craze of the century, and it's refreshing to see Indian stars take the global stage with unapologetic sparkle. The era of minimalism has made way for maximalism-with diamonds leading the charge." Just Like Gold Jewellery, Do These Gemstones Jewels Hold And Grow in Value Or Are Breaking Your Bank? Sunita Shekhawat tells NDTV about the intricacy of investing in gemstones as bridal jewels, "Gemstones, when carefully chosen for quality and rarity, can indeed hold and even appreciate in value over time-much like gold. However, the key is understanding their origin, craftsmanship, and market demand. While some pieces may be an investment, others are meant to be cherished for their beauty and personal meaning rather than financial return. So, it's about balancing passion with prudence." Aditi Daga keeps it short and sweet and opines the same, "Rare gemstones do hold value and are appreciating assets." Top Three Gemstones For The Contemporary Indian Bride Sunita Shekhawat says, "For the modern Indian bride, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires remain timeless favourites. Emeralds bring a fresh vibrancy and symbolise prosperity, rubies exude passion and strength, while sapphires add a touch of royal elegance. Together, they beautifully blend tradition with contemporary style." Achal Gupta adds, "Well, without any doubt big solitaire diamonds, vintage-inspired sapphires, and rich emeralds for contrast are the top three gemstones. Together, they create a bridal palette that's classy, elegant, versatile, and forward-thinking." Conclusive Take On The Future Of Gemstones And Indian Brides Sunita Shekhawat says that the contemporary brides lean towards expression of their individuality over opting for gemstones as status symbols, "Indian brides today crave individuality, sustainability, and stories behind every stone. Gemstones will no longer just be symbols of status but powerful expressions of identity and values. Expect a surge in ethically sourced gems, bold colour combinations, and personalised designs that break the mold-making every bridal piece as unique as the bride herself." Golu Bhai and Ishmita Badalia add a different point of view, "The future is brilliant and undeniably diamond studded. As Indian brides seek luxury with meaning, we foresee solitaires and standout diamonds continuing to dominate, with accent gemstones adding flair. It's the age of bold elegance, and the big rock is here to stay." Let us be honest, the brides of today follow the 'all that sparkles is a big rock' jewellery mantra while following their hearts desires and aesthetics alike.