Calm, considered, and concise, the best shirts are a wardrobe staple packed with quiet charm. In sartorial terms, it represents a certain air of confidence. What other item could equip you for a job interview, a glamorous party, a weekend coffee, or a city break? It’s no wonder the quest for the ultimate shirt is a tale as old as time. And although nothing can quite surpass a classic shirt for its versatile wardrobe potential, Payal Khandwala’s latest collection—The Perfect Shirt—has delivered a wealth of new iterations to pique our interest. In a fashion moment crowded with embellishment and spectacle, Payal has chosen the quiet authority of the shirt. She brings together 21 distinct interpretations of fashion’s most enduring garment, each exploring proportion, fabric, and movement with near-architectural precision. The Mumbai-based designer, known for her restrained elegance and art-led approach to clothing, treats the shirt not as a wardrobe basic but as a deeply personal uniform. The designer speaks to Indulge about perfection, discipline, craftsmanship, and why simplicity remains her strongest design language.
You call this collection The Perfect Shirt, yet you say there is no single perfect shirt. Is the title meant to provoke the idea that perfection in fashion is deeply personal?
That’s exactly it. Perfection is not a singular concept, and it means different things to different people. The idea was very much to create a shirt series where a woman might find one that feels like it’s the perfect shirt for her.
Was there a specific shirt in your own wardrobe that started this obsession?
Shirts have always been part of our product story—a quiet, ever-present staple across seasons, over the years. Lately, I’ve been gravitating towards a comfortable, well-made shirt. It’s become something of a uniform. So I wondered if this was something other women were feeling too. The shirt hasn’t always been given its due. It has occupied a reliable, underrated corner in our wardrobe. I wanted to play with the idea of turning something simple and classic into an elevated piece that stands its ground and makes you feel like you’re putting on something special.
I think it was the 504 silk shirt from our collection that planted the seed for this edit. I kept going back to this design whenever I wanted to feel like I was giving my outfit an upgrade. And it always seemed to do the trick.
We might continue to finesse it for the next edit further, correcting to make it better than the last. In this process, we’ve created a fresh study in shape and proportion. This study has been built on feedback from other women and lots of trials to ensure the details sit in harmony and serve a very real, practical purpose for different shapes and sizes
Twenty-one versions of a shirt sounds almost like a study in architecture. How did you approach this collection?
Several of the styles are nuanced updates on existing designs from our archive. We’ve revisited silhouettes we created several years ago, giving them subtle upgrades. This process of fine-tuning is trying to achieve the best version of the shirt—at least for the moment. We might continue to finesse it for the next edit further, correcting to make it better than the last. In this process, we’ve created a fresh study in shape and proportion. This study has been built on feedback from other women and lots of trials to ensure the details sit in harmony and serve a very real, practical purpose for different shapes and sizes. Nothing is purely ornamental. It all speaks to a very particular design discipline, one that serves the wearer always.
What was the hardest design decision: what to add, or what to remove?
For me, I think the “what to add” is always harder. I’m a good editor, and I love decluttering. But if I’m trying to create a sense of range, which is what we’re trying to achieve with this shirt edit, the approach for some might be to add surface elements to create differentiation. For me the challenge is the opposite. How to take the lessons more broadly and still create something compelling. I’m always very wary of adding elements that are gratuitous.
Was restraint the bigger creative challenge?
No, it wasn’t a challenge at all. Restraint is my natural baseline, an important part of approach. It’s the voice of our brand.
You mention that each shirt takes days to make. Can you walk us through one detail—perhaps a seam, collar, or fold—that looks simple but is technically demanding?
Each shirt is made by hand in our atelier in Colaba. The detailing and finishing is certainly time-consuming, but it is something we care about very deeply. There are no shortcuts here. Barring the label, you should be able to wear our clothes inside out. A detail that is technically demanding is the scoop-neck blouse. The loop is given its texture and shape with a quilting technique done by hand on the machine. The way the loop folds and falls requires precision and time.
How do silk, linen, and poplin change the personality of the same silhouette? Does fabric alter the wearer’s body language?
Fabrics absolutely change the personality of the silhouette. The grain, feel, and weight—they completely change what the garment is meant to do and how it’s meant to feel. Fabrics rest against the skin, so they have a very intimate, granular effect on how you feel. A linen shirt is airy and more relaxed; silk has a more glamorous luster. The same silhouette in different fabrics changes how you feel, how you move, and your mood.
The way I design clothes, they look better worn on a body than a mannequin. I often make my team try on the prototypes so we can get a feel of how it’s going to fall and move with the body and on different body types. We adapt the details based on this lived-in feeling. Mannequins can’t roll up sleeves, for instance, or tuck in a shirt in a way that a real person would and make it their own
Was there one prototype that looked perfect on the mannequin but completely changed once it was worn by a real woman?
I think for us the reverse is often even more true. The way I design clothes, they look better worn on a body than a mannequin. I often make my team try on the prototypes so we can get a feel of how it’s going to fall and move with the body and on different body types. We adapt the details based on this lived-in feeling. Mannequins can’t roll up sleeves, for instance, or tuck in a shirt in a way that a real person would and make it their own.
What does your own “perfect shirt” look like today, and how has that changed from your 20s to now?
In my 20s, I lived in New York, existing in tank tops, sweaters, and coats! These days, the perfect shirt for me is a very simple, classic poplin shirt: my uniform.
Many women keep a shirt for decades. What is the oldest shirt in your wardrobe, and why have you never let it go?
There’s the Suranto shirt in poplin, which I made almost 10 years ago, and it’s one of my favourites. A bit like the placket, it’s left of center. We’ve reintroduced this design in linen for this collection. And I love the original one I have—it’s been a good friend.
The white shirt is often associated with menswear, power dressing, and uniformity. How did you make it feel unmistakably feminine without relying on overtly feminine details?
My work has always been about dichotomies and finding a fine balance between them. The masculine-feminine interplay is very much a part of this—the perfect middle ground between polarities. The shirts in this edit are not designed to be androgynous. They borrow elements from classic menswear, but they’re cut for a woman’s body. Though, in the end, it’s really for anyone who feels great in our shirts.
Tell us three completely different ways you would style the same shirt for a morning meeting, a gallery opening, and a late dinner.
I would approach morning meetings with a practical, buttoned-up look, with minimal accessories. A gallery opening would be more relaxed, with buttons open and layered accessories. For a late dinner, I’d throw on a jacket—mostly because in restaurants I’m often cold with drafts from air conditioning I can’t control.
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The history of the white shirt
For more than two centuries, the white shirt has been fashion’s most enduring symbol of power, rebellion and elegance. Once associated with male wealth and the rise of the “white-collar” class, it evolved into a garment that women repeatedly claimed as their own. In 1783, Marie Antoinette shocked France by appearing in a simple white cotton chemise, rejecting the ornate grandeur of royal portraiture. Decades later, Coco Chanel borrowed from menswear to create a more relaxed feminine silhouette, while Hollywood icons such as Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Marlene Dietrich cemented the shirt’s timeless appeal. In contemporary culture, it has signified everything from Princess Diana’s quiet diplomacy to the effortless sensuality of Carrie Bradshaw and the minimalist cool of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. Season after season, the white shirt continues to adapt, proving that true style lies not in embellishment, but in the enduring power of simplicity.
—manuvipin@newindianexpress.com
@ManuVipin
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