There are certain mornings that quietly change the direction of your work.
Yesterday morning (17 May 2026), I went into the city of Jaipur for a photography walk. I had no fixed route in mind. I simply wanted to walk, observe and spend time outside. The city felt unusually calm in the early hours. The streets were still waking up and there was this beautiful softness in the air before the rush of the day began.
As I kept walking, I found myself surrounded by color everywhere. Women dressed in bright cotton saris and blouses in shades of turmeric yellow, deep pinks and oranges walked through the streets so naturally, almost as if the city itself was moving in color. There was nothing performative about it. It was simply life.
Eventually, I wandered into the vegetable market.
And that became the most important part of the morning.
The market was chaotic, loud, physically demanding and incredibly beautiful all at once. Women carried enormous loads of vegetables on their heads, moving continuously from one place to another. The amount of physical labour happening there was intense, yet what stayed with me was how gracefully they carried themselves through it all.
They had woken up in the morning, dressed themselves beautifully and then stepped into hours of rigorous work without complaint. There was a quiet dignity in the way they moved through the market.
I kept observing the faces around me. Every person there seemed to carry an entire story within them. Some were there to sell vegetables, some seemed to simply want to spend the day working because resting at home perhaps feels heavier than labour itself. It made me realise that for many people, there is no such thing as a Sunday. Life simply continues.
There was something deeply grounding about witnessing that reality so closely.
As I walked further into the older parts of the city, I found empty streets, ageing buildings, peeling walls and quiet corners that felt frozen in time. There is something terribly beautiful about old cities. They carry exhaustion and poetry together.
For the first time in my journey as a designer, I feel like I am allowing myself to move slowly while developing a collection. I am no longer rushing to immediately produce or constantly figure things out. I want this collection to form naturally through observation, emotion and experience.
I love making clothes and I love sharing them with people, but I no longer want to create things in a rush. I want every piece to carry meaning. I want the garments to hold fragments of what I observe, what I feel and what stays with me long after I return home.
This collection feels less like directly designing and more like collecting memories carefully, assorting them and then carefully designing with them.
Later in the day, I continued my craft journey and spent time looking closely at blue pottery.
Blue pottery originally came from Persia, but over time Jaipur has shaped it into something entirely its own through Mughal influenced motifs, local techniques and regional sensibilities. What fascinated me most was not only the final product but the process behind it. The craft moves through nearly forty-five stages before reaching its finished form. Layer after layer, patiently built over time.
I found myself completely drawn toward it.
Every year, I become deeply obsessed with one particular craft. I may not directly recreate it, but I allow its language, rhythm and structure to slowly influence my work.
This year, it is blue pottery.
And of course, patchwork.
While wandering through the city, I came across old sari patchworks and a craft box filled with layered textile fragments in the most incredible colours. The couching work on those pieces fascinated me instantly. There was something so emotional about the way old cloth had been repaired, layered and preserved over time.
I think patchwork carries memory differently from most crafts. Every fragment already belongs to another life before becoming part of something new.
At this moment, I do not fully know what the collection will become yet.
But I know it will carry Jaipur mornings, vegetable markets, old walls, labour, colour, blue pottery, patchwork and the feeling of walking slowly through the city without needing to rush toward an outcome.
Sometimes collections begin with garments.
Sometimes they begin with wandering.