India’s next fashion movement could well come from the Northeast
A slew of homegrown labels are blending local craftsmanship and culture with the region's storied fashion sense -- and setting their sights on the mainland.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the style quotient of Northeast India just can't be beat. Nongothung Ezung, or Nango, founder of Homeland Elegies, a clothing brand rooted in Nagaland's heritage, agrees. His old family albums with his parents in flared trousers, high-waisted pants and traditional wrap skirts mixed with colourful western tops alone are a testament to the fact. The region also witnessed the Korean wave in 2008, almost a decade before the rest of the country did. "It's just that the region was isolated or ignored," he says.
That isolation is beginning to crack. The trickle of national interest in the Northeast's fashion, food, music, festivals and culture has become a steady stream, helped by travel, pop culture and social media. Celebrity outings have brought further focus: Kateeria Kapoor Khan wore Aizawl-band Hannah Khiangte's contemporary interpretation of the Mizo puan, while Sonam Kapoor stepped out in an ensemble inspired by the Tangkhul kashan, from Manipur-based East, and Aamir Khan was spotted in Homeland Elegies. From Aizawl and Guwahati to Dimapur, Kohima, Shillong, Ukhrul and Imphal, designers are turning the region's storied fashion sense and rich traditions of craft and design into homegrown businesses with ambitions far beyond the region.
BEYOND THE LOOM
At first glance, this is a handloom story. After all, the Northeast is home to some of India's richest textile traditions. But a new generation of brands is reimagining that heritage for the contemporary consumer.
In Aizawl, Hannah Khiangte puts Mizoram's traditional puan through the language of contemporary tailoring. Her eponymous label, launched in 2013, works with women weavers, turning the puan into sharply tailored jackets and structured dresses.
"When I started in 2013, there was a very clear perception of what a designer from the Northeast was expected to represent: handloom, craft, tradition," she says. Today, "people are beginning to engage with the design language rather than only its geographic origin".
Celebrity outings by Jacqueline Fernandez and Shilpa Shetty have helped the brand. The real impact is when a Mizo textile appears on a major platform or is styled in a mainstream fashion context, challenging the idea that Indigenous textiles belong only in a particular kind of setting," says Khiangte.
Challenging such ideas also drives Dimapur-based Moala Longchar and her brand Kintem, which means "communities" in the Ao-Naga dialect. Growing out of the weaving unit Longchar's mother started in the mid-1990s. Kintem gives the traditional mekhela and shawls a contemporary facelift through geometry, colour and Naga motifs.
Meanwhile, in Manipur: Easternlight Zimik returned to Ukhrul after working with designers like Marmish Arora and Gaurav Gupta to launch East in 2023. The label works with Manipur's hackstrap or loin-loom weaving traditions, adding belts and pockets to traditional wraps to make the festive functional.
Elsewhere, Shillong-based Iba Mallai works with Meghalaya's ryndia silk; Assam-born Ura Maku turns eri silk into workwear, and Aizawl-based Studio Ngote combines Mizoram's loin-loom textiles with materials such as bamboo; and at 11 Tareng, a luxury label, Jayshree Koijam and Reena Ahanthem contemporise Mettel textiles, particularly Khurkhul.
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However, heritage isn't the only way to be a fashion brand from the Northeast. Tribe Fiction began around 2013 in Bengaluru when Joel Sailo started doodling on T-shirts and friend-turned-business-partner Amos Lalremtuariga marketed them. The duo eventually returned to Aizawl to build a streetwear brand looking beyond "Northeastern craft". "We want an Indian brand with a global sensibility," says Lalremtluanga.
Kohima-based Akali Kibami's Li-Mheghi takes another route with handmade products. "There is a difference between genuinely appreciating brands from the Northeast and simply looking for something with an ethnic or tribal motif," she says. Social media now brings Li-Mheghi interest from outside the region, including global orders.
WHO’S BUYING?
Even though the Northeast is the primary market of these brands, demand is increasingly coming from outside the region. Kintem is seeing an encouraging response from Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi, along with a trickle of international consumers. For 11 Tareng, which works across Imphal, Delhi NCR and London, US and UK are markets they want to target through pop-ups and tie-ups with multi-brand outlets.
Ezung, who calls Homeland Elegies his homecoming, was clear from the beginning that the brand, though rooted in indigenous culture, needed to have a universal appeal to have a long-term impact. Having worked in retail at Nicobar, he knew the ropes of setting up a ready-to-wear brand. Around 95% of his customers now come from metros outside the Northeast, and the label has crossed ₹1.5 crore in revenue in two years.
Mallai gave up a corporate hustle in Bengaluru to start Kiniho. Hailing from Ry Bhol, the eri-silk village in Meghalaya, she set up her own production unit to address quality and consistency. Today, around 50% of Kiniho's customers come from the Northeast, 40% from the rest of India, with Delhi and Mumbai responding particularly well, and 10% from abroad.
Khiangte, whose private viewings in Delhi have been a hit, says the audience is showing interest beyond the textile. "Earlier, there was a tendency to look at handwoven textiles primarily through the lens of craft. Today, they understand the time, skill, design and human labour involved," she says. "There has been a shift in the way people perceive value".
Social media has been a gamechanger, especially for small brands. Says Kibami: "For me, the bigger challenge is not the location anymore. It is getting discovered, building trust and reaching the right customers".
Last year, Mumbai-based Asenla Jamir of Otsu Clothing (pronounced "oot-sa", meaning stories in Ao) started Otsuverse, a Northeast-focused festival, to create a community in the financial capital. Jamir, who started with vintage and one-of-a-kind upcycled pieces, has also launched ready-to-wear. It primarily retails online, along with selective pop-ups and marketplaces.
"Social media has given visibility, but visibility and access are very different things. Being outside the traditional fashion centres can still affect access to talent, manufacturers, capital, buyers and industry networks," she says.
Ura Maku's Manjushree Saikia retails from The Canvas, a multi-brand fashion and design retailer in New York City, and has held her first pop-up in London this year: "There is greater awareness now; people want to know more about the textiles," she says, but calls it more curiosity than demand at this point. Ura Maku, meaning fly shuttle, started in 2018. Saikia was among the Gen Next designers at the 2019 Lakme Fashion Week and won a Grazia Young Fashion Award that year. Her eri silk jackets and hakama trousers remain bestsellers.
The numbers may be uneven, but the interest is encouraging. Zimik says: "It tells me that our aesthetics don't need to be explained only as something regional; they can communicate more universally when presented through a contemporary design language".
SMOOTH SAILING? NOT YET
Building a fashion label from the region, however, comes with its own challenges. Tribe Fiction knows it well. Lalremtluanga says the label gets plenty of enquiries from customers outside the Northeast through Instagram. "When we tell them we are from Aizawl and explain the shipping time, often the conversation stops there." In the age of instant gratification, Northeast labels face a logistical nightmare. It is one reason Tribe Fiction, which sells around 200-300 pieces a month online and at least 2,000 through physical stores across the Northeast, is looking for a space in Bengaluru.
Beyond national interest, the bigger issues lie within. Jamir, who grew up in Assam, says a "lahe-lahe (slowly-slowly) spirit" exists everywhere, making it difficult to push production to scale. Skilled manpower, sourcing, logistics and access to larger markets also remain challenges.
Elizabeth and Zosangliani Darngawn, NIFT alumni and cofounders of Ngote, have deliberately held back because production can't support aggressive growth. They decided to build their accessories business first. "We knew that setting up a handloom-based apparel production, creating a system and a chain of supply, would take time and resources," says Elizabeth. Ngote, established in 2018, took two years to launch a clothing range.
"In most regions of the Northeast, we don't have an industrial ecosystem for garmenting and production," says Mallai.
Conventional fashion scale demands speed, volume, standardisation and quick replenishment-something brands from the Northeast cannot, or may not want to, match.
A Mizo pun, for instance, can take roughly two weeks to two months to weave as loin-loom weaving, which uses a portable device connected to the weaver's body is strenuous and slow.
Jamir says, "Working with handwoven textiles and artisans also means respecting a certain pace of production while building a commercially sustainable business around it." Kintem is conscious of what its weaving network can produce. Zimik wants East's growth to strengthen rather than replace the artisan ecosystem around it: "The challenge is scaling without compromising that relationship".
Ahanthem of 11 Tareng says brands from the Northeast operate differently. There is no fashion season for the weavers. They have looms at home and work according to their own timeline. You have to respect that." Then the conflict broke out in Manipur in 2023. "There have been highway blockades, bandhs, internet blackouts. We have to keep working and adjust to whatever is thrown at us," she says. "We once took nine months to make seven pieces out of Khurkhulsilk. You wait for the fabric and then look for the customer," adds Koijam.
But they also go beyond the craft. Khiangte says, "Craft is part of our vocabulary, but it is not the entirety of our design identity".
Zimik says designers, craft-led studios, accessory labels and streetwear brands are now approaching the region from very different perspectives. "That diversity is important because there isn't a single definition of Northeast fashion. At the same time, I don't think our goal should be to create another category called 'Northeast fashion' and remain confined within it".
Eming's advice is to play to one's strengths, look inwards and create a compelling story and distinctive designs "And, ultimately build a loyal base of customers who will stick with you".
