Where do I get my inspiration?

I get asked this a lot, ‘Where do you find your ideas?’

The truth is, I rarely go looking. They’re always around me. You just have to watch carefully.

Travelling is fuel to my work. As an avid traveller, I am always absorbing from the environments around me - be it nature, architecture or culture.

Growing up in Bombay, I didn’t realise I was gathering visual memory. I was just being a curious, observant child, noticing the colour on a neighbour’s wall, the different kinds of rangoli powders during Diwali, or how the mood of the same street changed from Eid to Ganesh Chaturthi. My mum says I would come home from anywhere, even a market visit, a train ride, I came back with a hundred questions. I think I still do.

Bombay teaches you how to look. It shows you contrasts - glass buildings next to old chawls, Chinese LED light lanterns and decorated oil diyas in the same frame. It teaches you how to celebrate with the community, and that’s something that’s stayed with me. Every festival here has its own aesthetic language, changing its vibe from geography to generation. If you know the city well, you know exactly which area to visit to witness a particular festival’s authenticity. That kind of specificity of mood, colour, music, vibe is what I try to recreate in my sets. The city holds its own version of magic within itself.

Travel, for me, came much later. But it expanded and influenced my outlook towards how I envisioned scale at work. My travels across small towns, tall cities, the salty sea to the mountain trails - all taught me that inspiration doesn’t only come from ‘beautiful’ places. It often hides in functional objects, in things that are used and lived in. From the colours of the northern lights to the fabric in Mumbai rickshaws - all are details that stay with me. Whether I’m styling a product shoot or building a full room, I carry these visuals with me. I try to let memory guide me. Sometimes it’s an intentional reference like building a festive table inspired by an Indian home. Other times, it’s subconscious intricacies from my surroundings.

Inspiration isn’t one big moment. It’s dozens of small ones - absorbed, remembered, reshaped, until they quietly become part of your design language.