Anand Kabra’s Taramati II: Reimagining Hyderabadi heritage, craft and identity for the contemporary wardrobe
Thirteen years after his original Taramati collection, Anand Kabra returns to the Deccan with Taramati II—a study in heritage, identity and the changing language of fashion. The newest celebratory collection, Taramati II, draws inspiration from Taramati, the singer and dancer associated with the Qutb Shahi court of Golconda. It looks at the Deccan through its clothing and craft traditions and themes of longing and belonging. Hyderabadi forms, including the khada dupatta, farshi pajama, peshwa and gharara, are reworked through the designer’s eccentric artistry, alongside references to the arches and windows of the Taramati Baradari.
What Inspired Anand Kabra to Create Taramati II?
Anand Kabra talks to Indulge about returning to Taramati after 13 years, reinterpreting Hyderabad’s traditional silhouettes and bringing the Deccan’s history, craft and visual language into the contemporary wardrobe.
What inspired you to create Taramati II?
Taramati II began with a desire to return to something I had explored 13 years ago, to look at it through the perspective of where I am today. Returning to it now is not about recreating the past, but about examining what still feels relevant—the relationship between clothing, culture and identity and finding a contemporary language for it.
Taramati II picks up where the original collection left off, allowing the ideas, forms and references to evolve through a different time, a different perspective and, ultimately, a different me.
What does the Deccan mean to you personally?
The Deccan is home, but more than that, it is a way of being. There is a particular quietness to it—a sense of history existing alongside rapid development. Its architecture, language, textiles, food, and the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb have all shaped my visual vocabulary and, in many ways, the way I see.
I think that sense of contradiction has stayed with me—the ornate alongside the austere, the formal alongside the effortless, the old alongside the contemporary. These seemingly opposing ideas don’t compete here; they coexist naturally. That balance between contrasts has become an instinctive part of how I approach design.
How did Hyderabad’s history and culture influence the collection?
I wasn’t interested in illustrating Hyderabad, or in creating a collection that looked Hyderabadi historically. We have historians and revivalists for that. I was more interested in the visual codes that have emerged from the city—its architecture, ceremonial dressing, textiles, proportions and particular traditions—and in understanding what they might mean today.
There is also something very distinctive about the way Hyderabad absorbs influences, transforms them and makes them its own. That idea of cultural layering became an important part of Taramati II. Rather than reproducing a history, I wanted to interpret its visual language through my own lens.
Why did you choose the Taramati Baradari as a reference point?
The Taramati Baradari has always intrigued me for its relationship with space, proportion and movement. There is poetry in its structure—a sense of freedom and confinement existing simultaneously. The arches, repetition, symmetry and considered use of negative space translate naturally into my design vocabulary. They became less literal references and more a way of thinking about form, proportion and movement within the collection.
How have you reinterpreted traditional Hyderabadi forms for a contemporary wardrobe?
By reducing them to their essence. The khada dupatta, farshi pajama, gharara and other traditional forms have been deconstructed and edited. Volumes are controlled, proportions shifted, and elements separated and reimagined so that they can exist naturally within a contemporary wardrobe. The intention is not to make the familiar look new, but to allow its underlying idea to remain relevant.
How did you approach bringing traditional menswear into womenswear?
I have always been interested in the space between masculine and feminine dressing. Traditional menswear has an inherent structure and elegance. Rather than feminising those forms, I wanted to retain their authority, and allow them to exist on the female body.
It becomes less about borrowing from menswear and more about questioning why certain forms were assigned to one gender in the first place.
How did you arrive at the collection’s colour palette?
The palette came from the Deccan itself, but not in an obvious or literal way. I was interested in the significance of colour within ceremony—the colours associated with celebration and ritual, and the emotions they carry. Kumkum for its power and sensuality. Motiya for its purity and calm. Surma for its strength and intensity. The palette grew from these associations—not simply from how the colours look, but from what they mean and the moods they evoke.
What role do regional crafts and traditional techniques play in your design process?
Craft is fundamental to the way I work, but I don’t see it as decoration. I am interested in understanding a technique—its history, its discipline and its possibilities —and then finding a way for it to speak in a contemporary context. With Taramati II, traditional Hyderabadi techniques, predominantly zardozi, have been reinterpreted and at times deliberately disrupted. Embroidery becomes texture and structure rather than ornament. For me, craft remains relevant when it is allowed to evolve. The intention is not to preserve it exactly as it was, but to give it a reason to exist today.
Price on request. On September 25 and 26, 2026. At Collage, Rutland Gate, Chennai. Available online.
—manuvipin@newindianexpress.com
@ManuVipin
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