From mannequins to meaning: Indian fashion store facades get a glow-up

Time of India

15-06-2025

The fashion storefront today is no longer a shop window—it is an invitation to linger, question and decode. As ecommerce strips the thrill from checkout carts, and physical retail fights for profitability, brands are reshaping the face they show to the consumer. Designers now do not ask, 'what will you buy?' but declare 'look at us—we are more than just creators of wearable products'.
Two months ago, when Riddhi Jain and Dhruv
Satija
, cofounders of
Studio Medium
, opened their first store in Delhi's Dhan Mill compound, the mood board of their store design took as much time as their retail strategy, if not more. From architecture to materiality, from shopfront facade and window display to billing counter and furniture as art, every element was intended for deliberate communication. Not only with regular customers, but equally with passersby, window shoppers and tourists thronging the Dhan Mill complex.
For their label rooted in handmade textiles, craft techniques and art, where medium itself is central to their design DNA, Jain and Satija rejected ideas of vintage, royalty, maximalism and overdressed mannequins. 'We are a Partition family; excess doesn't sync with our design language. Yet, we are not minimalists either—we are in awe of India's prowess in steel and industry, for instance,' says Satija.
The result: Studio Medium's storefront window holds two blackened steel patilas (vessels), stacked atop one another. A fluted sculptural creation in their signature shibori textiles hangs above. The display reads like a tactile haiku— abstract, personal, quietly bold. The ceiling in the store and the billing desk are made of steel, the sofas wear applique upholstery created from unused textile threads and fabric off-cuts.
SHOP FRONT AS ART SPACE
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Across India's new fashion stores, large logos on glass facades and mannequin armies are giving way to a more layered vocabulary—textile sculptures, site-specific installations, heritage materials and abstract compositions.
The shopfront is becoming an art space. Designers have a voice—and they want to keep it above 'ensnaring customers for profits', as one puts it.
Ask Gaurav Jai Gupta of Akaaro, a label rooted in handwoven fabrics designed through the lens of textile engineering— where every fibre, yarn and metallic thread is calibrated for fall, thickness and tactile impact. When
Akaaro
opened its first store in Mumbai in April, the storefront became a collaboration with artist Ashish Karmali. They created textile tetrapods as sculptural installations—a tribute to Mumbai's coastal and industrial identity.
'Akaaro is not just about fashion. Our brand resonates with music, architecture, cultural programming — all of this must reflect in store design and, most of all, at the storefront,' says Jai Gupta. 'It's a conversation point.'
LAYERED REPORTING
These insights into store design build on Indian retail's versatility—and why it is compelling. Yet when broader conversations around its 'growth and surge' surface, the focus tends to stay on sales and profitability. Headlines highlight rising consumer incomes, expanding brick-and-mortar footprints in urban centres, and deeper linkages with small markets—for good reason.
According to property consultancy JLL, 8.1 million sq ft of space was leased by retailers in shopping malls and on prominent high streets across India's top seven cities in 2024. Twenty-seven new international brands entered the country last year. And while global luxury saw significant knocks, Indian retail—some designer businesses included—continued to grow. The
Boston Consulting Group
ranks India as the fifth largest retail destination in the world, with the market projected to reach $2,000 billion by 2032.
Yet what is often missing in these big stories is the slow dance between commerce and culture—how some of India's most thoughtful new fashion brands are using their front-facing spaces to craft atmosphere. Many acknowledge that they may continue to sell more through their ecommerce platforms or shop-in-shop formats and marketplaces. But few things substitute for intelligent marketing like communicating the voice behind their design.
It may be a vanity project—spending lakhs on a store, especially for brands that do not sell couture or wedding products, India's top-grossing retail categories. Yet for a new generation of designers, that voice is worth the investment.
CULTURAL SYMBOLISM
This vanity, after all, is more an inflection towards brand distinction. More importantly, it is a rejection of the exhausted idea that luxury is synonymous with maximalism in architectural design and store decor. Even as the market grew, that representation shrank the cultural diversity of what Indian fashion stands for today.
Walk through Delhi's Dhan Mill compound, or Mehrauli's fashion and jewellery stores near the Qutub Minar. Or, look at Mumbai's Kala Ghoda shopping district, or the evolving retail scenes in Hyderabad and
Bengaluru
. It is hard to miss that designers want to speak a culturally symbolic language. Increasingly, this is their business card.
'I wanted to be bold and unconventional while making sure that our store facade blended with the heritage mood of the Qutub Minar which faces the store,' says Sumit Sawhney, founder of Apala. A jewellery brand that makes statement silver ornaments plated with gold and studded with precious stones using several crafts techniques, Apala derives inspiration from civilisational eras in history. Its store facade in Mehrauli has sculptural beads—each individually designed in texture and shape—made of fly ash. Collectively, they hang like a beaded curtain. Along the wall around this installation, large, black vintage urns, used for storing grains in the past, have been placed.
Interestingly, this expression of a brand's persona through architecture and design is not limited to sprawling stores. Last month, Kochi-based designer Sreejith Jeevan of Rouka, who had been working from his studio for the last decade, opened his first store on Durbar Hall Road. The Rouka store is only 600 sq ft.
'Everything in the store—the red oxide floor extending into walls, sari drapes as décor, arches on the arcade outside—reflects what we stand for,' he says. 'Instagram is now the most literal marketplace, and we do sell more online. But this store tells our consumers that we are quirky, not minimalist.'
Rouka's evolving signature—imaginative interpretations of Kerala's kasavu, handcrafted wooden details, artsy renderings of palms, and accessories to mount sari stories—is visible right through its storefront glass.
BEYOND THE FASHION BUYER
Both Studio Medium and Akaaro say they plan to change their storefront installations through the year by a thoughtful calendar—adapting to seasonal themes and evolving relevance.
This signature of Indian fashion is poised to expand its meaning beyond buyers to spectators, art commentators and cultural researchers. Not everyone buys fashion, after all. But they may well buy its voice.