TRENDS
‘Design’ was Born in India
Discover the latest trends and insights in fashion and lifestyle.
Every Independence Day we hoist the flag and speak of freedom. But have we truly freed our minds? From the way we live, we dress, speak, and dine, to the manners we consider “refined,” traces of colonial influence still shape our daily lives. It is not different when it comes to design. Step into any new “premium” home, apartment or office in our cities, and you’ll see the same safe palette and predictable shapes: imported minimalism, cloneable rooms, muted colour schemes that could belong anywhere in the world, yet feel rooted nowhere. This aesthetic, borrowed wholesale from colder, greyer lands, was never designed to breathe in India.
Meanwhile, in small towns and villages, design remains alive and personal. Walls are painted with Mandana patterns, floors adorned with Rangoli or Kolam made from rice powder, courtyards dressed with flowers and stones arranged in geometric patterns. Even with the most modest means, beauty is created daily. Here, design is not an exclusive privilege—it is a language everyone speaks, a living expression of culture, and a way of honouring life’s everyday rituals.
Reclaiming Our Heritage — Our Design
Colonial rule ended in 1947, but the colonial aesthetic default did not. For over two centuries, we were taught that Western ideals represented modernity and progress. That belief seeped deep into our creative instincts, shaping the way we build, furnish, and decorate. Today, the result is often a blind replication of imported styles—muted, minimal, and “safe”—even when they strip away the very essence of who we are.
Independence Day is not only a reminder of political freedom, but also a chance to question whether we have liberated our sense of ‘self’ from that inherited mindset.
Our Living Heritage
We don’t have to look far to see the truth of what we are capable of creating. India is home to architectural marvels that blend beauty, utility, and cultural meaning in ways the world still studies and admires. Mehrangarh Fort rises from the rocks of Jodhpur like an extension of the land itself, its ramparts etched with history. The palaces of Mysore, Udaipur, and Falaknuma shimmer with frescoes, mirror work, and textiles layered in colours and textures that feel alive. Ancient cities like Varanasi, Hampi, and Fatehpur Sikri were planned as much for community and culture as for commerce and defence. Temples such as Konark’s Sun Temple, designed as a cosmic chariot, and Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai, with its towering gopurams telling stories in stone, remind us that architecture here has always been narrative as much as structure.
And then there is the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan — often called the “open-air art gallery of India.” Here, towns and villages are lined with havelis whose walls are draped in hand-painted frescoes depicting mythological tales, local legends, and scenes from daily life. These intricate artworks, still visible after centuries, show how design here was never limited to palaces—it adorned even the homes of merchants, making beauty a shared experience.
In Delhi, the Purana Qila still stands as a silent witness to millennia of history, believed to trace back to the Pandavas. The Red Fort, now only a fraction of its former glory after being largely destroyed by the British in 1857, still hints at the grandeur that once defined it. And in Maharashtra, the cave complexes of Ajanta and Ellora hold murals and sculptures that have endured for more than two thousand years, their pigments and forms astonishing in their preservation.
These are not relics of an extinct tradition—they are evidence of a design language that has been continuously evolving, rooted in knowledge systems that understood climate, craft, ritual, and community.
Design Was Made in India
Centuries before design weeks in Milan or Paris, India was setting the global aesthetic agenda. Our ‘cheent’ (Indian chintz)—the vividly hand-painted and block-printed cottons of Gujarat and Rajasthan—took Europe by storm in the 17th and 18th centuries, becoming so popular that Britain passed the Calico Acts to ban their import in order to protect its own mills. The fabric’s fame found its way into pop culture too, immortalised in songs like “Malmal ke kurte mein cheent laal laal.” Jaipur’s luminous blue pottery influenced European ceramic traditions, while the inlaid silver patterns of Bidriware travelled to Persia and Turkey. Mughal carpets were treasured in Ottoman palaces, and intricately carved ivory-inlaid furniture from Gujarat became prized heirlooms in European estates.
India didn’t just participate in global design. We shaped global desire.
Why Minimalism is a Misfit
Minimalism, as the West knows it, emerged as a reaction to industrial excess in regions with muted skies, long winters, and short days. It is clean, spare, and often monochrome—an antidote to monotony. But in India, a land of festivals, layered traditions, and endless colour, this imported aesthetic often feels like a cultural mismatch. Here, stripping away vibrancy is like playing a raga without notes, serving a thali without spices, or celebrating Holi without colours. The absence is not only visible—it is felt.
Art, Craft, and Spaces That Endure
From the Kailasa Temple in Ellora, carved from a single massive rock, to the glittering ceilings of the Sheesh Mahal, where candlelight is refracted into a thousand points of light, to the sculpted descent of Rani ki Vav, where engineering and ornament are inseparable—our design history is one of ambition, skill, and beauty intended to last centuries.
This is not just about the past. Living traditions like Madhubani, Gond, Pattachitra, and Warli painting are still being created today, passed down through generations in the very villages that birthed them. In these works, modernity and heritage are not in conflict—they are part of the same continuum.
The Death of the Inspiring Workplace
Walk into most modern offices in India today, and you’ll find a predictable sameness (read sadness) —grey partitions, uniform furniture, sterile lighting, and a design language aimed at assumed efficiency but starved of soul. Compare this to the “offices” of our past—the raj darbars, merchant halls, and court chambers where decisions of state, trade, and art were made. The Diwan-i-Khas in the Red Fort, with its marble inlay, Persian inscriptions, and the legendary Peacock Throne, was not just a seat of governance but a space designed to inspire awe and dignity. Merchant havelis in Gujarat and Rajasthan often had richly frescoed baithaks (reception rooms) where business was conducted amid art and storytelling. Even courtesans, often patrons of the arts, held salons in spaces adorned with silks, carpets, and carved woodwork that elevated conversation and creativity. These were not mere workplaces—they were environments that celebrated power, intellect, and beauty in equal measure.
Food, Utensils, and the Art of the Table
Design is not confined to what we build or wear—it lives on our plates, in our hands, and in the rituals of how we eat.
Indian food has always been more than nourishment. It is a visual and sensory symphony: the saffron glow of biryani, the emerald green of chutneys, the deep crimson of pickles, the warm gold of jalebis, all arranged with an instinctive sense of balance and proportion. Every thali is a circle of harmony—sweet balancing sour, spice softening with coolness, crisp paired with softness.
But the story does not stop with food alone. For centuries, our meals were served in brass, copper, bronze, kansa, or silver vessels—each chosen not only for beauty, but for function. Copper charged water with vitality. Kansa (bell metal) balanced acidity and aided digestion. Silver kept food cool and purified. These utensils were not disposable conveniences; they were heirlooms, passed down, polished, and cherished, holding the memory of countless meals across generations.
Eating, too, was an art. To use one’s hands was not seen as rustic but as refined—an act of intimacy between food and body. Even today, Bukhara in Delhi, one of the pinnacles of fine dining, politely declines cutlery, encouraging guests to experience their meal the traditional way. Science now affirms what tradition always knew: eating with hands engages touch, activates digestion, and turns every meal into a mindful ritual.
Across India, the table itself has been a stage for design:
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The South Indian banana leaf, a biodegradable canvas, where each dish is placed in a deliberate order—pickles at the top, rice at the heart, sweets to close.
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The Punjabi brass thali, vast and generous, reflecting abundance, with katoris (bowls) radiating like suns around a central dish.
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The Rajasthani thali, layered with ghee, buttermilk, and rotis cooked on open flame, served in shining metalware that withstands desert heat.
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In royal courts, meals were often served in bejewelled silver and gold platters, the vessels as opulent as the dishes they carried.
Even beyond India, our philosophy of food and the vessel shaped global traditions. Ayurveda’s emphasis on balance influenced Middle Eastern spice traditions, while the aesthetic of metalware travelled with traders, echoing in Southeast Asian dining.
Food in India has never been just about eating. It is about designing an experience—the colours, the textures, the vessels, the very act of serving. It is where taste meets touch, where nourishment meets beauty, where everyday design becomes ritual.
This is the art of the table—our table, our story.
Our Memory Runs Deeper Than Monuments
We need no acknowledgements—the threads of design run deeper into our collective memory than we often realise.
The Ramayan, dating back thousands of years, does not just tell a story of kings and wars. It describes Ayodhya as a city planned with precision—avenues laid out with care; homes aligned to harmony, water bodies and gardens woven into its very fabric. It speaks of Lanka, the golden capital, built with grandeur and foresight: gleaming palaces, lush gardens, and an urban order that would put modern city planners to awe.
The Mahabharat, from nearly 7,000 years ago, takes us into the Mayasabha—the Palace of Illusion at Indraprastha. Imagine walking into a hall where crystal floors mirrored water so perfectly that the greatest of warriors mistook them for ponds. Architecture and design were not just functional—they were meant to inspire wonder, to shape emotion, to make the ordinary feel divine.
And the thread continues through the centuries:
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The Ajanta and Ellora caves still whisper stories in paint and stone, their walls alive with colour and rhythm, carved to resonate with sound and silence alike.
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The Konark Sun Temple, a chariot of the cosmos itself, where wheels told time, and the entire structure moved with the rhythm of the sun.
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The stepwells of Gujarat and Rajasthan—functional marvels to harvest water in arid lands—yet designed with such grace that they became places of gathering, prayer, and beauty.
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The temples of Khajuraho, where every carving carries a philosophy, every angle a balance of form and spirit.
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And far beyond our shores, the knowledge travelled—giving rise to wonders like Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the largest temple complex in the world, built on the imagination seeded by Indian thought.
These are not myths from mythology. These are not fables meant to be dismissed. They are history—etched in stone, carved into caves, designed into cities. They are living proof that design and imagination have always been part of our very being.
We do not inherit this legacy as stories alone—we live it. It is there in the way we craft, the way we build, the way we see beauty and balance in the everyday.
This is not a borrowed past. It is our history. It is alive in the very fiber of every Indian.
Declutter the Mind
The real clutter in India today is not in our homes—it is in our minds. We have absorbed the idea that beige is timeless, Western is modern, and less is inherently more. That is the mental junk we need to discard. True sophistication lies not in imitation, but in integration—embracing global conveniences where they suit our needs, but holding fast to the warmth, colour, and cultural resonance of Indian spaces.
For thousands of years, we have lived beautifully, sustainably, and meaningfully without relying on imported templates. Our design is not a passing trend—it is a legacy, and it is time to reclaim.
Let us reclaim our heritage.
Let us reclaim our design.
And above all, let us declutter our minds
Design is Made in India — and always will be.