The Fresh List 2018: Ishanee Mukherjee and Anirudh Chawla

When they presented their label Poochki at Lakmé Fashion Week’s GenNext show in 2017, they caught the fancy of many. Ishanee Mukherjee and Anirudh Chawla give top priority to quality and durability, and are inspired by the likes of Miuccia Prada and Rimzim Dadu. While Ishanee’s defining moment was being part of GenNext, former hotel management employee Anirudh found that creating designs was much more satisfying.

Ishanee Mukherjee

You, in three words: Cat person, hyper, perfectionist.

Your very first creation: as a child I used to go to a creative art class where I made my first batik and bleach T-shirt at the age of 10.

Wardrobe essentials are…a striped shirt, denim pyjamas and a black jersey maxi skirt.

An era of fashion you cherish is: I like the ’70s. It had an easy, uncomplicated vibe.

Your life’s motto is…to give the present your all, and the future will take care of itself.

Passions outside your work include…collecting wooden dolls and travelling.

If you could have any job for a day, you would BE… an astronaut.

Anirudh Chawla

You, in three words: Talkative, cheerful, animal lover.

Your very first creation was…a result of my first experiment with a sewing machine. I created a patchwork mess that I gifted to Ishanee. She still has it pinned up in her room.

Wardrobe essentials are…a denim jacket, linen shirt and sneakers.

A passion outside of your work is…superbikes.

If you could have any job for a day, you would…be an F1 racer.

An era of fashion you cherish: since I’m a fan of metallic and space-age-inspired clothing, I think the 2000s were a cool era.

Ishanee and Anirudh

A masterpiece of yours: We recently created an entirely hand-painted dabu sari. The intricate painting took a total of 102 days, and was created in collaboration with master craftsman Bherulal Chhipa. This particular technique hasn’t been tried before and we were very excited with the final product.

Inspirations: Traditional Indian crafts heavily shape the work that we do.

What you hope 2018 will bring: We just got married and are looking forward to the changes that married life will bring!