After years of dressing men for red carpets, weddings and public moments, Gaurav Gupta has opened his first menswear flagship boutique. The move formalises what has already been happening quietly within the brand. “Our menswear has had a very unique sensibility and voice,” Gupta says. Over time, that category began to feel self-contained. “It’s just made a universe and space of its own.” That universe now has a physical address.
Menswear in India remains largely occasion-driven, a reality Gupta readily acknowledges, listing weddings, cocktail nights and milestone celebrations. But he resists the idea that this framework has ever constrained masculinity. “In India, masculinity has always been quite fluid,” he says. “We have always worn decorations, we have always worn jewels. Our ancestors, our kings, everybody has worn that in all kinds of cultures and all over India. And we’ve all worn drapes.”
That lineage is where his menswear begins, but the execution is futuristic. Sculpted lapels appear with metal accents that seem to drip rather than sit. Anatomical bugle bead embroidery traces the body. Prints are engineered rather than romantic.
“There’s a fantasy parallel world we’ve created for the Gaurav Gupta man,” he says. The brand’s centaur logo, half man and half horse, captures that idea neatly. “He’s living out his fantasy self,” Gupta says. “He’s a bit of a Gatsby boy. He likes to go out. He’s bold, artistic, expressive and breaking free from being defined by what masculinity is supposed to be."
Curiosity is what allows his menswear to sit outside the familiar binaries of ethnic and Western. Gupta's work has carved out an entirely new category over the years. “When we started, men were wearing very basic tuxedos. Black, plain. We created the experimental tuxedo.” Embellished, embroidered, metallic, sculpted, those tuxedos gradually expanded into bandhgalas and long jackets, worn as easily by Indian clients as by international ones. “It made Indianness global and globalness Indian,” he says.
Gupta’s own personal style filters into this world, too. He describes himself, with a laugh, as a “futuristic gothic hippie.” The gothic comes through in sharp lines and architectural cuts. The futurism appears in metallic accents and jewellery that feels integral rather than decorative. Rings, metal details and hardware move between his body and his garments, blurring where the designer ends and the design begins.
The answers become shorter as the questions narrow. Who should a man dress for first? “Himself.” Rules worth breaking? “I don’t believe in any rules.”
Designed by Karanbir Duggal in collaboration with Gupta, the store moves away from standard retail planning, using curved forms and layered spatial transitions that invite visitors to move through the boutique with a sense of discovery. “The Indian man is much more experimental than we think he is,” says Gupta. You can start with a pin-tuck tuxedo shirt, a reworked mandarin collar or a wrap shirt that shifts how a familiar silhouette behaves. Simpler bandhgalas with unexpected buttons. He describes the store as a space where men can engage gradually, moving toward more creative silhouettes if and when they choose.
