Western clothing wear label Advait’s trans-seasonal 2025 collection celebrates the delicate balance between black and white

The last time we spoke to designer Advaitha Ravishankar was two years ago when she first introduced us to her label, Advait — a brand on a mission to bridge the gap between fine art and fashion. At the time, she had just launched her latest collection, Indo-Western: Vol 1, tapping into the growing demand for Indian clothing with a Western twist.

Since then, the Mumbai-based label has not only expanded to North America and UAE but has also unveiled a series of contemporary collections that have caught the eye of Bollywood’s finest, including Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Aditi Rao Hydari, Mrunal Thakur and Genelia Deshmukh, among others.

Now, Advait has introduced its trans-seasonal 2025 collection, Keiko, that explores twilight’s beauty and the clarity of monochrome and we catch up with her to learn about her new edit.

“Anyone who has followed our journey knows that we are a brand that loves experimenting with colours in our prints. In 2023, we decided to work solely on black and white prints, which I was frankly very uncomfortable with, but it ended up being one of our bestselling collections, surprisingly! So, we decided to see how far we could take it each year, experimenting with how many colours we could add to black and white while maintaining its originality and integrity. Hence, Keiko came to life,” Advaitha begins.

The trans-seasonal 2025 collection celebrates the tension and harmony that define our existence, embracing the delicate balance between darkness and light, where they co-exist as both contrasts and complements.

“We wanted to explore the intersection of light and dark and the marriage of gold and silver, with gold representing the sunlight and silver representing the moonlight. I have always been a fan of the idea of juxtaposition and bringing two completely contrasting ideas together to see what can be created, so, that is what we experimented with this time,” the designer shares.

Keiko is designed with a strong emphasis on contrast, particularly in its silhouettes, textures and prints. It features distinctly feminine shapes, including ruffled details, pleats and short, fitted dresses, juxtaposed with sharply structured pantsuits that boast strong shoulders.

Additionally, several pieces incorporate multiple prints and fabrics of varying textures within a single design, making the intended contrast strikingly evident. “Keiko has a lot of dresses. That’s something that we wanted to focus on in this collection as most women find styling dresses to be much easier. We’ve also got a lot of pantsuits and corsets, which are styles Advait is very well known for,” the founder reveals.

The colour palette boasts black and white with accents of gold, silver and copper. A significant use of men’s suiting fabric lends structure to select pieces, while satins and jacquards, overlaid with intricate hand embroidery, enhance the prints with depth and detail.

“We wanted the collection to be very sleek and sexy, so, there isn’t much layering going on, but we’ve made a lot of fitted silhouettes that accentuate the body and also a lot of power suits for those who prefer stronger, more androgynous silhouettes. The best part about working with a black and white palette is that every look can be styled or layered with another, so, it’s very open to personal style and interpretation,” the designer elucidates.

All of Advait’s prints are first painted by hand, then scanned onto a digital medium and manipulated — a process the label remains committed to preserving. As a result, digital prints play a significant role in this collection. Complementing this, a team of highly skilled hand embroiderers expertly transfor m the prints, adding texture and depth to make them more tangible.

“I personally find abstract art to be a very strong driving force behind the prints of each collection. This time, we looked into a lot of traditional Japanese ink making and calligraphy while we were making the prints,” Advaitha says.

Ahead of summer, the label is already set to launch a resort wear edit soon. “We’re going to be coming out with a resort wear collection that’s very Advait at its core, with bold, bright prints, but in a colour palette you’ve never seen us work with before, so, we’re very excited for that,” she signs off.

₹6,000 onwards. Available online.