Renowned fashion designer Nitin Bal Chauhan is celebrated for his avant-garde approach and bold, conceptual creations. He is known for seamlessly blending storytelling with design, often using his collection as a medium to challenge societal norms, explore psychological themes, and express powerful narratives. His work has dark, theatrical aesthetics, intricate craftsmanship, and strong visual impact.

In Chauhan's designs, one gets to see a sense of rebellion. Very few designers can ace the style of blending Indian culture, mythology, and symbolism in their creation and still remain globally relevant and strikingly modern. His eponymous label made its debut in 2007 at the India Fashion Week and since then, he has been showcasing his creations across the world, including the recently concluded Moscow Fashion Week. However, unlike other designers, Chauhan doesn't design for celebrities, his creativity is unique and complete in itself. When asked, he was quick to respond, "I don't believe in celebrities."

The designer recently concluded the Blenders Pride Fashion Tour where he unveiled his iconic edition, The One and Only in Gurugram, Chandigarh, Mumbai, and Vizag. We caught up with the designer to talk about his latest edition, his design philosophy, designing for celebrities, his thoughts on AI and fashion and more...

Excerpts from the interview

For this special collection, I wanted to approach this from a warrior mindset. I brought the warrior energy from medieval armor which has inspired me for this collection. I could imagine the models going out walking on the stage and everybody standing and cheering them up. I have taken special references as per my garments, and how they would appeal to somebody watching from a distance below. So, it's great for them to just like, vibe with the environment while being in a very comfortable state of mind.

I think that's one of the most exciting parts when we try to bring in a certain inspiration, how we are going to bring it to life and it takes a lot of creation of a lot of boards. And I always look at tangible and intangible references. They really help and guide me and my team forward as to what we might be inspired by, but how to talk in the language of fashion and how to communicate that through colours, textures, forms and eventually presenting it with the kind of music and the way you want to show. So, all of this comes together, tangibly and intangibly.

Something that's cutting edge, something that pushes the boundary, something that is avant-garde and involves couture techniques to create streetwear or everyday clothing.

At NBC, every piece of clothing is meant for a special purpose for a person who's wearing it. So, you know, celebrities have their own style and it's about where celebrities look at the entire collection. Pick up something that they can relate to. So, it's more about that. For us, we always follow a certain design process, and we have followed it over the years. We know that people love our kind of vibe and they, you know, respond to our kind of styling and our cuts. So, it's more about just doing your job and whoever is wearing it, it is just like an effect of it.

Well, fashion has been evolving, and there's a long way to go for India to have a conversation with the larger part of the world. Designers are beginning to move ahead. This is a golden era for India and I think in the next decade you'll see more and more designers reaching out. As far as the Indian fashion circuit, it’s been booming for a lot of years and mostly couture or bridal is something that people relate to more but true design for me stays in breath and how you interpret that. I think over the years designers need to work very hard.

AI is definitely there but I think, as long as you don't know how to use AI, it's going to produce that again would start looking generic. You can lead the horse to the water, but you can't make him drink, so you need to be a great prompter and just not that you need to also develop skills as to how clothes are made and how to present them. Having said that, it's going to be difficult in terms of as we go ahead, more competition is going to come up. But I think true individuality will always stand out.

I would love to design for Salvador Dali, King Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel could wear my clothes, even Bhagat Singh.

Fashion always revolves and everything that we do comes back in 20-30 years, but I wish that Gotham Punk come back in a very big way. I mean, they are a very big influence right now, but I want to really see that like Neo Goth, Neo punk sort of vibe and especially the cricketers, they have this shaved head and suddenly it came to the masses and parents were okay with their kids having their side head shaved off, and it became mainstream. So I think such trends, more wackier trends where you know kids can express themselves more should make a comeback.

Well, yeah, but there are lots of trousers coming down where undergarments showing off. I think that's bad. But more than that, when people don't know their body types, they end up wearing things like something too tight which is just not highlighting their body or personality. And secondly, if you are fit and still you are just wearing fit clothes for me that's a pop. You're overdoing it.

One fashion rule you swear by?

As they say, there is no ugly colour. There's only ugly amounts of color.

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