June 9 : Delhi, for Kunal Rawal, has never been just another city on the map. It’s scale. It’s instinct. It’s memory. With the opening of his new flagship in Mehrauli—his fifth store in India and second in the capital – Rawal isn’t entering Delhi, he’s returning to it. To the way the city celebrates. To how it dresses. To what it expects from occasion wear. And to something more personal: growing up around the imposing presence of the Qutub Minar, a structure that, in its own way, has always understood permanence, scale, and detail.
This new space holds all of that.
THE STORE AS A CODED SYSTEM
The Mehrauli flagship marks the fifth collaboration between Kunal Rawal and architect Rooshad Shroff—a partnership that has, over time, developed its own language. One that begins in Mumbai, but finds its most complete, immersive expression here.
The store is monolithic in its intent. Green Baroda marble frames and defines the space. Floors, walls, furniture, surfaces: everything is carved out of the same material, creating an environment that feels excavated. There’s a weight to it, but also a certain clarity.
“Delhi has always felt like a natural extension of the brand for me,” says Kunal Rawal. “There’s a certain energy here – how people celebrate, how they dress, how they show up. This store is our way of responding to that, but in a way that still feels very true to us. It’s probably our most immersive space yet. Everything you see – from the marble to the mechanisms – is intentional. It’s not just about how it looks, but how it works.”
Because function, in the world of KR, is never secondary. It’s visible. Crafted in. Designed to be understood.
Garment racks don’t sit still, they move, motorised, disappearing into the ceiling and reappearing when needed. Tables run on tracks. Mirrors shift, adjust, respond. Mechanisms are left exposed, not hidden – turning utility into the brand’s very own signature aesthetic.
This isn’t retail as display or visual merchandise. It’s retail as a system of functionality, fun and freedom of expression.
MOVEMENT, LIGHT, AND CODE
The most immediate disruption comes at the entrance. A narrow corridor lined with Morse code mirrors pulls you in—fragmented reflections, partial glimpses—before opening out into the space. The motif continues into the trial rooms, where the entire environment is enveloped in this coded surface. It is immersive, slightly disorienting, and entirely deliberate.
“The Delhi store builds on a language we first explored in Mumbai, but pushes it toward a more monolithic and immersive expression,” says Shroff. “We’ve taken the green marble and allowed it to completely envelop the space, so the architecture feels carved rather than assembled. In contrast, the gold ceiling introduces a sense of luminosity—it almost dissolves the heaviness of the stone, creating a dialogue between weight and lightness.”
That oxidised gold ceiling, introduced here for the first time, shifts the perception of the store entirely. It reflects light differently through the day. After hours, the mood changes again – custom lighting responds to the garments, even illuminating glow-in-the-dark pieces, turning the space into something closer to theatre than vanilla retail.
There are layers to discover.
A hand-engraved marble façade maps out the World of KR – personal and professional milestones etched into stone that really expresses the story of the world of KR without any words. A cut-out Morse code logo acts like a viewfinder, offering only a controlled glimpse into the store. Unlike most retail environments, this one remains closed on all sides – prioritising privacy over visibility.
A brass gate marks the entrance. Inside, arched windows soften the geometry. Marble furniture is offset with cushions. Gold screens descend across entire walls. Six digital screens bring technology and movement into the space.
Nothing here is static.
“It was important that the store didn’t feel fixed,” Shroff adds. “It had to move, adapt, respond – just like the brand itself.”
THE CLOTHES: THREE PARALLEL NARRATIVES
If the store is the system, the three-way collection is the output. This season, Kunal Rawal doesn’t offer a singular narrative. He offers three.
THREE COUTURE CAPSULES FROM THE WORLD OF KR
Three capsules drop not as variations of a theme, but as parallel ideas – each rooted in the codes of the brand, each pushing a different boundary. There’s the engineered disruption of KR Hybrid Minds, the architectural precision of KR Box Pleat, and the deeply personal study of black in KR Black.
Different directions. Same intent. To expand what Indian menswear couture can do – and how it can exist beyond the ordinary. Grunge meets industrial precision. Function sits alongside texture. Familiar silhouettes shift, return altered, and behave differently each time.
Three capsules. One world. Infinite ways to wear it.
KR HYBRID MINDS: ENGINEERED IDENTITY
“Just because it’s a bandhgala doesn’t mean it cannot be something else.”
That thought sits at the centre of KR Hybrid Minds. The collection is built on instinct, but executed with intent. It reflects Rawal’s own duality – designer and architecture-lover -resulting in garments that don’t just look different, but function differently.
A jacket reads like layered construction, but is engineered as a single piece. A kurta borrows from military discipline – clean, ordered, structured – without losing fluidity. Here, innovation isn’t for the sake of innovation. It’s structural. Layers are implied, not literally added. Proportions shift without imbalance. Textures interrupt expectation. What you see isn’t always what’s crafted. It’s something more, with less.
At its core is adaptability – the idea of a man who moves between codes, cultures, and occasions without needing to belong to one. Silhouettes are deconstructed, but never without thought. The bandhgala shifts from ceremonial to transitional – softened, then sharpened again.
The palette remains controlled: washed pastels, denim blues, vanillas, ivories, slate greys, teals, olives. It’s softness without fragility. Strength without rigidity. Not singularity. Not even duality. Plurality.
KR BOX PLEAT: A LANGUAGE OF FORM
“I’ve been drawn to box pleats for a long time. They’ve existed forever – but somehow, we never given it this much love.”
With KR Box Pleat, a detail becomes a system. Historically rooted in Contemporary tailoring, the box pleat is reinterpreted here—not as ornament, but as architecture. Each fold is measured, deliberate, engineered into the garment rather than just added onto it. The result is structure without stiffness. Movement without excess.
This is where tailoring meets spatial design.
The pleat becomes a language – repeated, refined, and translated across kurtas, bandhgalas, shirts, and eveningwear. Volumes expand with control. Lines hold precision. There’s also a subtle introduction of dual-tone dyeing – tonal shifts that move across folds, creating depth, dimension and drama, pretty effortlessly.
The palette leans outward – earth tones, layered colour, hints of the outdoors – adding a sense of movement that feels natural, adventurous and free.
At its core, the collection is about repetition. How a single idea, pushed far enough, becomes identity – a code of KR that will stay, transform and reappear time and again.
KR BLACK: A PERSONAL CONSTANT
“Black is my very own ivory.”
With KR Black, Rawal isolates something that has always existed within his world – but never this directly.
Black, here, isn’t absence. It’s presence. After 15 years, the introduction of a new label marks this capsule as something more than seasonal. It’s foundational. A personal code, made public.
The idea is simple: Black on black on black. But the execution is layered. Tone replaces contrast. Texture replaces colour. Detail replaces excess.
A matte surface meets a subtle sheen. A structured silhouette dissolves into drape. Embroidery intelligently reveals itself over time and movement. Silhouettes straddle between precision and ease. Details are hyper-considered, almost obsessively.
Black doesn’t ask for attention. It commands it. Ceremonial, everyday, classic, subversive – it moves between them without needing to change.
There’s also celebration here. Not loud or heavy or embellished, but important. Crafted into the detail. Into the restraint. Because in the world of KR, black was never background. It was always the starting point.
A WORLD, FORMED & EVOLVING
The Mehrauli flagship and the Summer Capsules don’t sit separately. They complete each other. One builds the space. The other fills it with meaning. Together, they offer a clearer view into what Kunal Rawal is crafting each season – not just a brand or collection, but a system of design, identity, and movement.
A world that isn’t static. A world that doesn’t simplify. A world that continues to evolve – one garment, one fold, one code at a time.
