Introducing Akaaro, a label which makes innovative textiles and creative weaving wearable, functional and beautiful.
The story of Akaaro is as multifaceted as its beautiful and brilliant textiles. Akaaro’s founder is Gaurav Jai Gupta, an innovative designer and passionate artist whose journey into fashion has been anything but typical. Gaurav coined the term ‘craft couture’, with his insistence on the use of handmade textiles from traditional handlooms, and has truly pushed the boundaries in textile innovation. Akaaro is known for clothes, accessories and products which are all hand-woven and sustainable. Gaurav’s design ethos is centered around the idea of celebrating original textiles, in ever-more creative and accessible ways - sometimes in traditional outfits such as gorgeous sarees, sometimes in modern cuts and wearable day-to-day outfits which feature the adaptability and quality of Indian fabrics. After all, as Gaurav points out, there is more than one way of being ‘Indian’.
“I never liked the idea of sympathy with textiles,” says Gaurav. “Poor weavers! Poor Indians! I hate that.” Judge each project by the merit of the product, he asks, not with ideas of being ‘charitable’. While the theme is futuristic, the materials remain handmade, exploring the concept of art crossing over clothing, and back again. Gaurav hopes to launch the collection, now three years in the making, in the next few months.
