India

For generations, master artisans across India and the Global South supplied luxury markets while their names stayed hidden behind export houses, intermediaries and non-disclosure agreements. A new incubator asks whether that labour can carry its own name and command luxury value. Susan Walker, whose nonprofit Ibu operates from the American city of Charleston, explains how visibility and price might converge.

India's craft sector employs millions of women in home-based work, often paid by the piece and rarely counted in corporate accountability. As machine-made imitations spread, the question of fair pay grows sharper. Katherine Neuman, who runs House of Wandering Silk in Delhi, examines how replication, pricing and storytelling together decide the fortunes of traditional makers.

As slow fashion turns handmade cloth into a selling point, the artisans behind Ikat and Kantha have gained visibility without a matching rise in pay or security. The imbalance raises a pointed question about who profits from the story of craft. Megha Agarwal, founder of Studio Maeve, weighs whether artisan recognition delivers genuine dignity or borrowed branding.

Himroo, a centuries-old silk-and-cotton weave from the city now called Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, had fallen from thousands of handlooms to none still working. Arushi Chowdhury Khanna, who founded the social enterprise LoomKatha, argues that reviving such a craft depends less on preserving skill than on rebuilding the market and the visibility that sustain it, not on the loom alone.

Yarn Expo Autumn 2026 in Shanghai will place cotton, plant-based fibre and recovered-material yarn options before buyers across its autumn edition. The fair will feature the expanded India Pavilion, international exhibitors and concurrent shows, with yarn supply placed beside apparel fabrics, fashion and knitted garments under one exhibition setting for sourcing.

For generations, the women who hand-paint Kalamkari cloth in southern Andhra Pradesh sold their labour without their names attached to it. Anita Reddy, a social worker who founded the artisan collective DWARAKA, set out to change that by placing control of both the making and the pricing with the women themselves, from the first outline to the final price.

Indian knitwear remains largely seasonal, confined to winter essentials and mass production with limited design ambition. Saloni Jain, founder and designer of her eponymous label Saloni Jain, approaches knit as a creative discipline grounded in fibre science and construction logic. Her work in cotton, linen and lyocell reframes knitwear as a year-round design medium for the Indian market.

Bharat Tex 2026 is set to take place at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, from 14 to 17 July, organised by the Bharat Tex Trade Federation. Inspired by the government's Farm to Fibre to Factory to Fashion to Foreign vision, the third edition features expanded state participation, sustainability recognition and digital enablement tools.

Hemp has long promised more than it has delivered in commercial textile markets. Supply inconsistency, cost uncertainty, and the absence of viable blend systems kept it at the margins. A US company now has an India entity, local inventory, and identified business cases in hand. Tim Almond, Founder, Heartland USA, and Amey Padma, Head – India Business, explain the model.

Premium retail in India is no longer defined by a narrow set of traditional luxury buyers, as a younger, more globally connected consumer base reshapes demand across categories. Pushpa Bector, Group Executive Director, DLF Retail and Whole-time Director, DCCDL, discusses how this expanding aspiration is reshaping leasing strategy, brand curation and the long-term positioning of premium retail destinations.