Sreejith Jeevan’s Pulari puts a playful spin on traditional Onam fashion

Every Onam, Kerala reaches for the same wardrobe: white, gold and the promise of a kasavu sari that emerges once a year for the sadhya before returning, folded away, until the next harvest season. Designer Sreejith Jeevan, the man behind Rouka, has spent over a decade nudging that formula. With Pulari, his 2026 Onam collection, he takes the festival somewhere less expected, into the hills, open skies, flying birds, water lilies and sunlight of a Kerala seen through fabric and thread.

Quirky mundus, versatile saris and a fresh take on Onam dressing

We speak to Sreejith about the collection, which takes its name from the Malayalam word for dawn and draws inspiration from Vani Jayaram’s Thiruvona Pulari. “The word pulari is associated with a sense of newness, freshness, and hope,” he says. The idea of a new dawn also gave him a starting point for imagining the landscape. “As much as the collection is about hope, freshness and a sense of celebration, visually it is also about quirky sunsets, open skies, flying birds and landscapes,” he adds.

The result is a version of Kerala that feels familiar without relying entirely on the symbols usually associated with the state. Hills, sunlight, flowers and water lilies appear across the textiles, while shades of blue, mint, green and yellow move beyond the familiar white-and-gold palette of Onam. A hand-dyed kasavu sprinkled with flowers brings a softer, botanical interpretation, while other pieces turn fragments of the landscape into playful graphic compositions.

Much of the effect comes from what Sreejith does with fabric that might otherwise be discarded. “The collection has impressionism derived from the vocabulary of textiles, because we are using little pieces of fabric to create it,” he explains. Fabric off-cuts are sorted by colour and assembled into appliqué, allowing the hills, sunlight and other elements to emerge gradually from the textile itself. The technique grew out of his interest in making use of pieces that were too small to work with individually, turning what might have been waste into part of the design.

Sreejith approached the textiles as artworks before thinking about the garments they would become. “I have not looked at the pieces as a sari or a mundu or a dupatta. I have looked at them as an art piece that I want to make as textile art,” he says. The collection spans saris, mundus, dupattas, kaftans and shirts, taking the idea beyond the familiar Onam sari.

Sreejith’s interest, however, extends beyond what happens on Onam day. “Instead of creating an Onam sari, our focus has been to create a Rouka sari that you can also wear for Onam,” he says. “Rather than buying 13 looks for each event, buy little pieces that can be repurposed and used differently,” he adds. The mundu offers another expression of the idea. Sreejith began making quirky mundus for himself after returning to Kochi, including one scattered with seagulls, before people started asking where they could buy them. Pulari expands the experiment into 11 mundus for the 11 days of Onam, a garment he has watched become a fashion statement, spotted on runways and worn by Bollywood actors for film promotions.

For all the newness in Pulari, Sreejith has kept one part of Rouka unchanged. The label continues to work with weaving clusters in Chendamangalam and Koothamballi in Kerala, with whom it has developed long-term collaborations. “For us, our focus comes from wanting to work with the same artisan group again and again,” he says.

Quirk has become an important part of how Sreejith approaches tradition. For him, it does not mean making it childish or frivolous. “I don’t mean that it’s immature or that it’s juvenile,” he clarifies, describing it instead as an element of fun, a small twist added to something familiar. For a festival with rules of its own, Sreejith is making room for a little mischief.

₹5,000 onwards. Available online and at the Rouka store in Kochi.

Email: anoushkakundu@newindianexpress.com

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