World building is their forte | Eeshaan Kashyap to Aaquib Wani, the most wanted creatives

The strains are blurring when it comes to model occasions, vogue exhibits, gala dinners, and even exhibitions. Sophisticated décor and nice meals now not make the minimize; as an alternative, styling and choreography are taking centrestage. A combined tribe of design folks — from assorted backgrounds corresponding to artwork, music, culinary, vogue, and retail — are serving to increase the bar, crafting beautiful areas and curating unforgettable experiences that aren’t essentially weddings. Think vogue runways with artwork interventions, or artwork events with puns, desk jewelry and 12-foot bananas. Meet the mavericks who’re on pace dials throughout the nation.

Eeshaan Kashyap: Master of the tablescape

Last month, for artwork collector Tarana Sawhney’s India Art Fair get together, Eeshaan Kashyap served an modern ‘pun-tea’ — kicking issues off with a 12-foot banana on the roof of the Sawhneys’ Lutyens bungalow. “I was inspired by the conceptual art of Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), the infamous banana taped to the wall, as well as Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), the porcelain urinals, which we used to serve a green pea salad,” says Kashyap with fun, recalling how he injected the humour of the pea/pee pun into conversations. “We plastered the walls with fake currency to denote the idea of ‘more is more’, and the ability to have bad taste celebrated as good taste. We also placed pop artworks made of fibreglass next to Tarana’s own Gandhara and Deccan sculptures, to create a contrast between the new and the old, between art and not-art.”

A day earlier, for the gala dinner for Asia Art Society’s Game Changer Awards, he meditated on the thought of sharing — portraying the inclusivity in artwork by way of the sharing of flavour, historical past, literature, and poetry. “It gave me the freedom to bring dishes from Nepal and Sri Lanka into the menu. Even the décor took its cue from three ideas, ‘words, roots, and threads’, which formed a narrative of sharing.” And simply final week, he created a tablescape for Asian Paints at India Design ID the place he performed with salt. “I called it Table Play, creating lab-grown salt crystal candlesticks, which took around four months of experiments to realise.”

A chef by coaching however a tastemaker above all else, Kashyap’s work defies classifications — is he a designer, an artist, a forecaster, a stylist, a chef, or one thing else completely? He combines meals with design, artwork, and efficiency to narrate tales.

Table jewelry and edible wallpaper

It is his prolific strategy that enables him to ask attention-grabbing questions. For instance: if a desk has legs and is coated with fabric, why can’t or not it’s accessorised with jewelry? Why can’t it — like an individual — have a persona? Kashyap, 38, calls it tablescaping; bringing in disparate parts that defy classical strictures to create visible and sensory narratives.

“Gone are the days of calla lilies being flown in, or opulent chandeliers, or pretty things that say nothing,” he says. Gatherings have develop into extra intimate (although not essentially in numbers), and the desk has emerged as a medium to show artistic concepts. He ought to know, having labored for the Ambani wedding ceremony’s Jamnagar spell, and with manufacturers corresponding to Good Earth, Nicobar, Pottery Barn, and The House of Things in the previous 12 months alone.

2025 is additionally wanting thrilling for Kashyap when it comes to enjoying round with objects that don’t essentially belong on a desk, particularly ideas like ‘table jewellery’. Unlike tableware, it is designed to be extra opulent, fascinating, and kooky. “Like a butter knife made with rock crystal; you don’t really need it, it’s very difficult to create, but to have it placed on the table is definitely a statement.” Handling requests for strong jade thalis for a consumer, to making a tablescape for Jaipur Rugs strewn with precise emeralds and rubies, solely strengthens his thought of its future in entertaining.

And his experiments don’t cease at jewels. There’s edible wallpaper you may lick proper off the partitions, for one. “We did this for the Asian Paints Experience Centre in Chennai, working with the design team to create these cool, crazy wallpapers that you can lick and taste, and even rip off and eat.” For a personal consumer, he just lately created an set up impressed by the works of American artist Alexander Calder, the place his signature kinetic sculpture was reimagined with items of edible khakhra [thin wheat crackers] hanging as counterbalances in an edible, inventive chandelier.

Unfettering imaginations

Kashyap takes wherever from 5 days to six months to flip concepts into actuality, along with his compact five-member staff. “For a wedding in Bali last June, I created a life-size marble fountain that dispensed a delicious elderflower-and-gin cocktail. This took about three months to make, as we had to ensure that it had airtight, food-grade copper pipe,” he says. “We’ve also done cupboards that guests opened to find chilled cocktails inside, negating the need for a single bar. The ideas are endless, and can become fascinating when done well.”

Next week, his concepts will take centrestage in an exhibition titled ‘PLAY’ at The Stands in Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium. Showcasing tableware, decor objects, and objets d’artwork, he hopes to create “tonal, tactile, and terrific experiences for visitors”, and unfetter imaginations when it comes to creating experiences that spark conversations.

Varun Rana is a vogue commentator, artistic director, and model guide based mostly in New Delhi.

Aaquib Wani: from Lollapalooza to Ambani weddings

Preparations are on in full swing at Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Racecourse for subsequent weekend’s musical extravaganza, Lollapalooza India. Expect installations of the metropolis’s iconic Kaali Peeli taxi, a kinetic backyard, interactive photo-ops plus crowd favourites like inflatables, together with one in all the pageant mascot, Shaman. “Every element is designed to spark excitement and capture that unmistakable ‘Lolla magic’,” says Creative Director Aaquib Wani about the India version of the largest music pageant in the world.

“The idea is to blend Lollapalooza’s global identity with a local flavour,” says Wani, the mind behind Lollapalooza India’s spatial design since its inception in 2023. For the inaugural version, Wani and his staff at Aaquib Wani Design created black and yellow cabs, a cat enjoying a guitar, UFOs and a number of different kooky, surreal but cartoony motifs that gained reward from all quarters. “It was obviously inspired by the brand’s signature colours, iconography, and so on, but we ended up creating our own version of the American music festival.”

Back in December, Wani additionally labored on a 200-ft. ocean-inspired immersive stage design known as ‘The Underwater Symphony’ for Sunburn Goa, one other hot-ticket music pageant. The self-learnt design maverick is at the moment the go-to particular person wanted by manufacturers when it comes to spatial design — the artwork and science of making practical and aesthetic areas.

Last 12 months, he designed Team India jerseys for the Paris Olympics and the T20 Men’s Cricket World Cup, conceptualised the launch of MG Motors’ Comet EV, styled musician Prateek Kuhad’s Silhouettes tour, and designed a festive version Apple Beats Solo Buds. In the previous, Wani has additionally been part of Ambani siblings Isha and Akash’s weddings in Mumbai.

Wani, 33, hails from a enterprise household coping with Kashmiri handicrafts, and has a aptitude about him, along with his lengthy hair and unconventional sartorial selections. But he is old-school when it comes to the analysis and inspiration behind every of his designs. He likes to discover the cities that host the occasions and takes cues from its numerous parts — be it the structure or the natural world. “It’s always important to have a narrative. The idea is to celebrate the city and not just throw in some pretty graphics, because I feel it’s very important to have a connect,” says Wani.

It started with a poster

Wani began out in a metallic band when he was 17, making live performance posters on MS Paint earlier than educating himself to use Adobe Photoshop. “I didn’t know anything about royalty-free images or licensing. I was just putting together visuals I liked so that I could promote our band,” he recollects. After failing highschool and dropping out, he determined to comply with his ardour for music full-time. Soon, he was getting requested by bands and pageant organisers to design their posters. From 2010 to 2014, Wani labored at cult journal Rock Street Journal, a interval he describes as “formative” due to the publicity to India’s rising music ecosystem. “I come from that time when all of this [the music festival industry] was still fresh and being experimental. I got to understand it all from the audience’s point of view,” he says.

In 2014, he moved out of Rock Street Journal to work with designer Sumant Jayakrishnan at the latter’s Delhi studio. It was there, Wani says, that he moved from 2D to 3D work and started to perceive the idea of spatial design. Going past merely making a poster, he acquired concerned in stage design, backdrops, décor and installations. Today, he works with a staff of 12 on initiatives that take wherever from 4 to 12 weeks, generally longer, from conception to sourcing to execution. Designing merchandise like the Beats Solo Buds, for example, takes him two to eight weeks. At Lollapalooza India this 12 months, Wani is additionally inviting college-level designers to create areas at the pageant, an try to give again to society maybe.

From flex banners to pitch decks

Talking about what it takes to design music festivals then and now, Wani says, “Social media wasn’t big back then. It was more to do with newspaper and magazine ads, and flex banners. We didn’t have any of the installations we have today. There’s been a big shift.” Where there was only one stage and a bar at music occasions, there are actually a number of levels, model installations, photograph cubicles and extra. “It’s all about instant gratification. Every touch point matters, from the gate design to the stage,” he says. On the digital entrance, there are templates to create for artist bulletins, movies and extra.

But, Wani says, his “ADHD mind” loves engaged on as a lot as doable and thrives on challenges that include exploring assorted curiosity areas. “We’re working on 20-odd projects right now. I can’t be doing the same thing over and over again,” says the design maven, who is busy with a brand new inside ornament undertaking.

Anurag Tagat is a Bengaluru-based unbiased music journalist.

Doyel Joshi and Neil Ghose Balser: Constantly pushing boundaries

At the India Art Fair final month, a big 12×12 foot pink ice set up was a preferred cease. Made with over 120 slabs, every icy block weighing round 200 kg, the huge sculpture was additionally one in all the solely issues that guests couldn’t purchase at the business artwork occasion.

“It was funny as people would look at it from afar and be like ‘that’s really beautiful’, and ask if they could buy it. So, it kind of became a commentary on the setting that we were in,” Doyel Joshi, 33, says with fun. “And yet, it was a very visceral sculpture as many people were emotionally affected by it. They would touch it and get their hands red by doing so, collect the dripping water or even have their children play in it.”

The sculpture has its origin story in Mumbai, at IF.BE, the cultural centre housed in one in all South Asia’s oldest ice factories. Joshi and her husband Neil Ghose Balser’s artistic studio, HowAreYouFeeling.Studio, was commissioned to create an set up for an occasion for Dewar Whisky. “We walked around to see how the context could inform our perception. It still has the machinery used to make ice, such as these small canals for the water to come in. Then, when we ducked behind it, we discovered that the original owners of the factory have a small window there, where they still produce and sell ice,” says Joshi.

As the duo spoke to them, one thing sparked. “We thought of the idea of ‘rented ownership’; they would collaborate with us and bring the expertise and practical know-how but also bear the history,” she shares, including that the erstwhile house owners made the ice blocks and stacked them. Joshi and Balser’s intervention: the color pink — an emotive hue that’s resonated with them since their wedding ceremony.

Weddings and inflatable pink balls

It wouldn’t be amiss to say that their palace wedding ceremony in Rajasthan was pivotal — not solely in kickstarting their lives collectively, but in addition that of their studio. “We’d been living in New York, and [in November 2022] we’d moved to India where we got married. After a nine-page article came out in Vogue India, the number of brands that reached out to us and the amount of people that started recognising us and our work was quite incredible,” says Balser, explaining how the wedding ceremony was their first canvas, the place they created completely different installations.

For instance, a 10-foot inflatable pink ball was conceived whereas exploring the nuances of what a marriage is and its extra archetypical and archaic concepts. For occasion, how the bride is given away to the groom. “So, we decided to put this red ball in the groom’s balcony, almost like a location pin, but also an emotive form — to point out that we were doing all this ‘drama’, as it were, for the bride to end up there,” says Joshi.

Two months later, when vogue model Lovebirds, gave them their first fee, they expanded the thought of the ball. “The bride had reached the destination, and in a typical love story, it’s a happy ending. But is it really? The story doesn’t end there,” Joshi explains. For the present, they created a big runway with the ball in between. It was known as ‘Space in Between’, and through the present Neil and I acquired up and pushed the ball out of the runway, rolled it alongside the viewers and out of the area. What was left was virtually like a cavity, conceptually exploring what occurs after.” Sonically, they set it to music and dialogue — an earthly trade between companions about soup for dinner and day-to-day life.

Through all their work, Joshi and Balser’s purpose is to have folks work together with their concepts on a really fundamental human degree, and to take one thing away from it.

Yearning for various experiences

Today, the two-year-old interdisciplinary apply creates artwork installations, sound design and artistic ideas with manufacturers, vogue labels, and occasions for purchasers, together with Hermes, Gucci, Mercedes, and most just lately British-American sitar participant Anoushka Shankar.

“We’ve been commissioned by Anoushka Shankar and the Brighton Festival in the U.K. to do the principal installation and the brochure cover. With her album and idea of a ‘New Dawn’ as the departure point, we worked with a concept that will be shown throughout May in a travelling installation, and an exhibition at the end of the festival,” says Balser.

For the two, now “feels like the moment to be in India”. “You can create; there are collaborators who are willing to push the boundaries. It’s not easy to explain what we do, but I think [the fact] that such a multidisciplinary, multi hyphenated approach works is a testament to really how open everyone is,” says Joshi, including, “I also think there’s money in India.”

The final three days, they’ve been in Delhi, engaged on a 4,000 sq. foot architectural undertaking. “We are looking at the intersection between architecture and sculpture. While on the one hand, it’s a store for selling clothes, on the other, it’s conceptually an installation, too.” What they haven’t designed thus far are weddings. At least, not but.

Isla Maria Van Damme: Multitasker with a touch of masala

Better often known as Loulou, Isla Maria Van Damme is a stylist, hotelier, mannequin and passionate gardener. She turns 80 this May and is an inspiration to the Indian design neighborhood that is aware of her. An integral a part of the styling at the Raw Mango shops in Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad, she has labored on a number of design initiatives, together with jewelry designer Hanut Singh’s pop-ups. Born to Belgian mother and father in Kodaikanal, Loulou lived and labored in Europe for many years earlier than returning to India “to retire” in 2000. “Well it hasn’t worked that way,” she laughs, over a morning telephone name. “My friends say you are working too hard but I am meeting extraordinary people all the time. I say yes to crazy things sometimes but it’s such fun.” Recently, she was a part of artist and filmmaker Sarah Singh’s “moving tableau”, an artwork salon that includes sopranos and over 40 artists, at Gwalior Fort. It was a efficiency that blended heritage with up to date relevance and Loulou joined in as “a prop, dressed like a bird of paradise”. For Singh’s pop-up at Soho House, she showcased his spectacular jewelry towards “strange and quirky, broken antiques, be it vases, plates or statues”. Known for her inimitable private model, she has been a part of campaigns for vogue label Injiri and jewelry model Outhouse.

This 12 months, she is busy styling homes in Delhi and Goa, one other in Jaipur for Injiri’s Chinar Farooqui, in addition to designer Vikram Goyal’s atelier. There are additionally plans to design a salon of kinds at the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai. “I am a masala. I cannot do one style, whether it is homes or other projects or when dressing up. I like creating a look by mixing different things, and it’s with items of character that you get style,” she explains. Very organised, Loulou means that her conscious way of life helps her keep constructive and sharp. At residence in the foothills of the Western Ghats, her workplace is her eating desk in her verandah, overlooking the Palani Hills. Despite the view, it seems she will be able to work on a number of initiatives and but join extra. “India has embraced me, I don’t know why. I feel loved,” she concludes.

Tahir Sultan: An eye for the uncommon

The half-Kuwaiti, half-Indian aesthete is identified for a lot of issues: his home events, love of Champagne and the gymnasium, his design retailer Makaan, and his eye for the uncommon. So, when jeweller Sunita Shekhawat requested Tahir Sultan to do the visible merchandising for the retailer at the new Museum of Meenakari Heritage final 12 months, he tried to break the mould of how positive jewelry could be offered. His shows noticed superb strands of emeralds juxtaposed with inexperienced metallic meals storage packing containers, aluminium pails with meenakari, and vibrant firecracker dabbas with lustrous pearls. “It wasn’t anything run of the mill,” he says.

I caught him shortly after the Jaipur-based designer wrapped up a busy weekend at India Design ID, the place he catered the meals for the occasion’s honorees — a “high-end grazing table” with Middle Eastern and Arabian meals. As we chat, he shares particulars of a few of his different initiatives, together with artwork curator Noelle Kadar’s workplace at the newly opened Jaipur Centre for Art, in the City Palace. “I used the araish [lime plaster] technique and created a backgammon inspired office.”

The versatile designer — who as soon as labored below vogue designers Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, and arrange his personal clothes label — has carved a distinct segment for himself at the moment with work that stretches throughout interiors, product design, meals, and artwork installations. “A lot of clients that approach me have already bought into my ethos. So, I’m given a lot of leeway to do what I want to do,” says Sultan, who briefly studied structure earlier than pursuing arts at London’s Central Saint Martin’s. Given his talent to carry collectively objects as assorted as Naga tables with Rajasthan’s love of color, it’s no shock that at Makaan, and in his different initiatives — his ongoing collaboration with Jaipur and Kuwait-based way of life model Ecru — there are “no design limitations”.

Aatish Nath is based mostly in Mumbai.

Nayantara Kotian: Interactive staging, replete with mise en scène

The Mumbai collective, Crow started as an immersive theatre firm 10 years in the past and has been creating uncommon experiences that contain the performing arts, be it at India Art Fair in the capital just lately or for Almond House in Hyderabad. Co-founder Nayantara Kotian, 41, who indicators off as Boss Lady in her emails, explains that the Art Fair undertaking, The Dichotomy of Delhi, “was an installation that revelled in the process of creation”. The inside sanctum of the set up welcomed guests to paint alongside artists, whereas the completed canvases had been mounted on the outer partitions of the set up in choreographed performances each day. The set up was by Studio Lotus, with visible artwork by XXL Collective, and expertise and efficiency design by Crow.

“We create an entire world for audiences to walk into and they have agency inside that world,” says Kotian. “In the past, we have created large-scale shows in Delhi, where we took over entire abandoned buildings and redesigned them to these worlds that also involved storytelling.” For HSBC, the staff created a six-voice symphony known as The Song of the Cosmos at NMACC in Mumbai, the place every voice performed parts, from darkish power to the solar and the ocean. Kotian, a movie graduate of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, who pursued efficiency design at Central Saint Martins, London, additionally teaches at design faculties throughout India.

With inputs from Rosella Stephen and Surya Praphulla Kumar