Lounge
Why fashion designers are turning into home decorators
Summary
As consumers get conscious about their living space, fashion designers are finding an opportunity in home furnishing
When Anju Modi started on her first-ever sketch for a carpet two years ago, she wanted it “to be subtle yet grand". Known for using bright shades in her clothing, the couturier wanted the carpets to be in muted shades to “blend in with the highly stylised homes of today". Last week, after three decades of establishing a textile-forward eponymous fashion brand, Modi made her debut in home décor with a line of carpets as part of a collaboration with Obeetee Carpets.
Modi, also a film costume designer, chose miniature paintings as inspiration. One 10x8ft hand-knotted wool and silk rug, for instance, recreates the scenery of Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh, with brown banana trees and a sky-blue bird in a beige sky. “It took five attempts to get the design and the colour scheme right," she said during the launch on 28 August.
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“Carpets require a different mindset compared to clothes. They need to tell a story through one piece of textile, be sturdy and fit into a person’s idea of home, which is really challenging. People now think of their homes as an extension of themselves, which wasn’t the case five years ago." Pre-pandemic, to be specific. Covid made the world look inward, wanting a space that reflected their design sensibilities and personality, much like their clothes. This is mirrored in the upward movement of the home décor industry: Last year, according to Statista, the revenue from the home décor market segment in the country amounted to $1.79 billion (around ₹15,000 crore now), and it is likely to see an annual growth rate of 8.78% (CAGR 2024-29).
That explains why homegrown fashion designers’ love for the home has moved beyond occasional flirtation to a full-blown affair. You can buy Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s wall coverings, Abraham & Thakore’s tableware, J.J. Valaya’s paintings, and Manish Malhotra’s laminate sheets and bathroom fittings.
Kunal Rawal, who has joined hands with luxury living brand Boheim to design luxury houses, said in a recent interview to Lounge, that the “collaboration is not just about merging fashion with real estate; it’s about telling a cohesive story where every element, from the clothes you wear to the space you inhabit, reflects the owner’s style and sensibilities. As a designer, it helps us extend our influence beyond fashion."
There’s a lot of money to be made in home furnishings and design, says designer Ashdeen Lilaowala who, like Modi, is entering the home décor space with the Obeetee collaboration, called Viraasat. Tarun Tahiliani and Anita Dalmia are the other two designers.
“It’s no longer just the top 1% who want that aesthetic house. Even youngsters want to experiment—they will buy that low-cost IKEA chair or that super-expensive Chandigarh chair and match it with a carpet worth lakhs if it resonates with their personal style. They are open to spending more if it matches their vibe," says Lilaowala.
The fashion world’s fascination with dressing up homes is not a new one. Ralph Lauren came out with a home collection, including rugs, bathroom accessories, tableware and wallcoverings, in the early 1980s. Fendi decided to “dress" furniture the same way they dressed people in 1988. By 1990s and 2000s, Versace, Missoni, Giorgio Armani, Roberto Cavalli, Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana jumped on the bandwagon.
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Back home, only a handful of players had their eye on the living space. J.J. Valaya was among them. In 1996, when the Indian fashion industry was finding its feet, Valaya decided to open a home space in Delhi’s Chhatarpur farms, which had a café, an art gallery, a florist, a section dedicated to his clothes and another that showcased curated furniture. “After 15 years, in 2011, we started expanding our (home décor) offering and doing tapestries," he says, over the phone. “We, designers, are always researching and experimenting, so getting into home furnishings is really a natural extension for us. Having said that, the industry, in general, is opening up only now in a big way. Any serious (fashion) player will eventually become a lifestyle brand." Today, Valaya Home is inside Delhi’s JW Marriott hotel, where the designer offers in-house designed furniture as well as art.
Besides the changing behaviour of the consumer, one of the big reasons for the willingness of brands to expand in the home space is corporate funding. Abraham & Thakore, which had a home line when it first launched in 1992, relaunched its home collection last year. A year earlier, Reliance Brands Ltd (RBL), the retail arm of the conglomerate Reliance Industries, had acquired a majority stake in the brand.
The other reason is people’s growing interest in the India story. “Shoppers want to highlight traditional India through their clothes and home," says Angelique Dhama, president of Obeetee Carpets. “I know people who wanted to show off their bathrooms because they have designed them with passion."
It’s important to have a range of home furnishings that are fashion-led, timeless and “buyable", believes Tahiliani. He calls his carpets in the Viraasat collection, which play with chikankari and kashida, more “commercial". “People like me (referring to the fact that he prefers simpler clothes and designs for personal consumption) are buying home stuff that they didn’t perhaps five years ago. So, my carpets are lighter, have fewer knots. Essentially, the idea is that there’s something for everyone."
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