Ikai

Traditional handmade lace - contemporary clothing

Founded by Ragina Ahuja, Ikai in Hindi means one, and represents strength, self-expression, fierce femininity and empowerment.

The New Delhi based brand interprets their names symbolic meaning through wearable art and the creation of timelines clothing.

Each piece is hand-crafted by artisans from locally sourced natural materials that represents the culture that produced them.

Ikai has an easily recognisable signature, featuring hand-cut applique, cutwork and graphic patterns.

The incredibly detailed collection features unexpected cut work trimmed edges that create pattern from absence and artifice.

Graphic lines echo and emphasise dobby’s, jacquards and intricate applique.

Graphic black is highlighted with fine red and gold detail, or layered with stripes, borders and transparencies.

What can’t always be appreciated from a photograph is that each tiny diamond, chevron and line is an applique or cut not simply a print.

The collection has a romantic whimsy with graphic punctuation encased in sculptural and fluid silhouettes.

Designs hover between the Indian salwar kameez, Moroccan kaftans and Arabic abaya’s layered over wide leg pants and wrapped around tiny cropped choli’s.

Many pieces are reminiscent of the abaya – the fluid Arabic garment worn as a modest coverup to the sometimes more provocative or fashionable clothing worn underneath - garments that demurely speak of culture and tradition.

There is almost a puritanical aspect to designs that would satisfy even the most modest of dressers, while delivering more than a modicum of poetry and whimsy.

Silhouettes take the form of caftans, tunics, pyjama sets and abayas. It’s clear the collection pulls on regional and historic garments from across South East Asia including India, China and the Arab Peninsula.  

Layers include a more modern take on the salwar and kameez, the traditional pairing of pyjama-like pants and tunic traditionally worn by many South Asian women as a less formal alternative to a sari.

Mongolian, Indian, Arabic, Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese influences proliferate, representing an undefined ethnic origin to many of the pieces, that is representative of a region, not a single place.

Beautiful Asian prints proliferate in rich graphic and figurative patterns, featuring dragons, clouds and mythical creatures in rich gemstone colourations.

Antelope graze across the body of a tunic with interlocking geometric mandalas and contrasting cut out borders. Engineered stripes and diamonds mimic the geometry of kimono styled tunics with contrasting applique and embroidery.

Stylized tigers slink down from necklines onto a plain simple tunic, while Geruda, the Balinese god appears digitized and stylized through embroidery and applique.

Borders of geometric, pixelated space invaders adorn the front of a tunic emphasised at the wrist with cutout and digitised edges.

The type of intensity of work only seen in India, that takes skill, heritage and history to produce.

Ahuja defines her inspirations as tribal, incorporating unconventional textures and embodying the transformation of tradition into bold individualistic expressions which she terms ‘calm rebellion’.

“My illustrations are more than patterns – they are wearable art, embraced by fearless women around the world who wear clothes as a language of self-expression.”

The process of creation is unique to Ikai, with garments an outgrowth of Ahuja’s fascination with hand drawn natural forms, reconfigured as geometric motifs tamed by a grid formation.  The artwork is then engineered onto the fabric and realised through applique’, embroidery and cut outs.

Ahuja has showcased her collections across the world stage.

In recognition of her outstanding work, she won the International Fashion Showcase award for India at London Fashion Week in 2017, was named runner up at the Vogue India Fashion Fund in 2014 and received the Tigre Blank Award for Best Garment the same year, and the Grazia Young Fashion Award in 2015.

Akai has received a multitude of other awards over the years, including the Elle Graduates Award for Excellence in Practical Luxury in 2014, and runner-Up at the Student Design Award in 2009. Ultimately the combined recognition distinguishes Ahuja’s work as pushing the boundaries of Indian craftsmanship and asserting its place in contemporary fashion worldwide.

For more information about Ikai…

Website: https://ikaibyraginiahuja.com/

Instagram: @ikaibyraginiahuja