Sabyasachi Mukherjee called himself a “businessman” five times during the course of this interview. Not once a designer. Perhaps unsurprising, given his ambition to build a “global clothing brand that outlasts” him. More than a year has passed since Kolkata-based Mukherjee introduced a new silhouette—a deliberate choice, he tells Lounge, as he moves towards building a business that extends well beyond clothes. He has expanded further into jewellery and has sunglasses, footwear, leather goods and make-up in the works.
His multi-year collaboration with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, or The Met, only underlines this ambition. Since 2019, the Met has pursued short-term collaborations with brands such as Band-Aid, Estée Lauder and Le Labo, creating art-inspired products at accessible prices to bring the museum’s collection to a wider audience. Sabyasachi’s offering—a Byzantine-inspired jewellery collection starting at $2,000—is the museum’s first engagement directed towards the Indian audience. It’s a way of introducing consumers in the country to The Met, says Josh Romm, head of global licensing and partnerships at The Met.
The jewellery collection will debut on 15 September at Sabyasachi’s New York Fashion Week show, marking his return to the US runway after 20 years.
And then there’s his new store, spanning 26,000 sq. ft, which opened earlier this month in Delhi’s Mehrauli. It’s a temple to overwhelming excess and luxury—an idea Sabyasachi has been selling since he started his brand.
While walking Lounge through the store, Mukherjee talked about his business strategy and why he’s not interested in making custom clothing anymore. Edited excerpts:
Why are you so invested in jewellery?
It’s an opportunity. Jewellery in India has traditionally been important for marriage, investment and inheritance. That’s among the reasons buyers ask two questions: “What is the resale value?” and “What is the making charge?” They want the lowest making charges and the highest buyback. Today, that’s coming back to bite them because lab-grown diamonds and coloured stones are affecting the prices of natural ones. People didn’t realise that what would become rarer than precious stones is workmanship. Craft has become the rarest commodity.
Over the next 10-15 years, people will buy things because of how they are designed, not only because they store money. And when that happens, Sabyasachi will be the Cartier of India. I don’t think anybody else will be able to compete with us because the consumer will have completely changed. I’m preparing Sabyasachi for that change.
And what about clothing?
Clothing will always be important. But that doesn’t mean jewellery and accessories cannot grow. Our accessory business will probably cross ₹100 crore this year, and we aren’t that old in this space. It took me about 15 years to reach ₹100 crore in clothing. Accessories are difficult to build unless a brand becomes culturally significant. People don’t carry an accessory only for its functionality; it helps establish their social identity.
Met collaborations have largely been price-sensitive. Why did you choose to start at the top?
In a country like India, the economic theory of trickle-up never works. You can only trickle down. So I said let’s start with jewellery and maybe, five years later, I’ll do a Met T-shirt. You don’t start with a T-shirt and aim to build jewellery.
The beautiful thing about the Byzantine Empire is that it touches India as well. It was a confluence of the Islamic, Greek and Roman worlds.
Will you do gold jewellery?
100 per cent I will do that too. Gold jewellery excites me, and what I like about gold is its democracy. Whether you’re buying one gram of gold or 10kg, you’re still buying the same thing. I think being able to take gold, give it branding and design, is radical.
How important is visibility to become a big brand?
People often make the mistake of thinking that when they buy luxury, they’re buying a product. They’re not buying a product; they’re buying pride. So sometimes, making an exceptional product isn’t enough. If my jewellery goes to the Oscars, the customer buying an entry-level pendant feels like they’ve gone to the Oscars. If I get a nod from the Met, they feel that their desire has received international recognition. It’s also about policies; for instance, I don’t design clothes for Bollywood anymore because everybody wants custom. And when you do custom, you reduce a designer to becoming subservient to the customer…. If people don’t aspire to buy you, you shouldn’t aspire to be a luxury brand.
You are returning to New York Fashion Week after 20 years...
We are building the business in New York. We’ve done a lot of pop-ups with major retailers like Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman, and a lot of Americans who aren’t Indian are buying our products. About 40% of our revenue comes from America, and we are also powerful with NRIs in the US. Even before the New York store opened, 30-35% of our turnover came from America. We are still far from being a global brand, but we’re working towards it. But the US was low-hanging fruit, and I believe in catching the low-hanging fruit first.
What can we expect from the New York Fashion Week collection?
It’s modern couture. I’ve always had a theory: the smaller the star, the bigger the dress; the bigger the star, the simpler the dress. I want to test that theory in New York. So practicality and wearability will be at the heart of the collection. I don’t like theatrical shows because I’m a businessman. For me, it has to be commerce first.
But this retail space says otherwise.
The store is theatrical, but it sells clothes. It sets the stage for people to come and live their fantasies.
You haven’t created a new silhouette in a while.
For me, not changing the silhouette is a strong business strategy. When things become overtly creative, they can lose their investment value. For many women, silhouette is identity. If someone is used to a particular sleeve length and you change it, they feel cheated.
Western wear will be slightly different because it doesn’t reach those price points, but I’ve always been interested in brands like Loro Piana, Ralph Lauren, Gap and Banana Republic. They become super brands because people go to them for identity and consistency.
I don’t want Sabyasachi to be a fashion brand. I want it to be a clothing brand. If we become a fashion brand, the shelf life becomes shorter. We could bring out 50 silhouettes a year, but we don’t. We might bring out one every two or three years, and only after a lot of deliberation. I keep asking: “Will this silhouette sell for the next 20 years?” The longer the timeline, the harder that question becomes.
There’s a narrative that Indian Gen Z will be among the biggest luxury consumers of the future. Are you building Sabyasachi with this generation in mind?
Not at the moment. Gen Z around the world has stopped buying because they don’t need to. Their social confidence isn’t dictated by consumption; it’s dictated by purpose. I think the stock market and financial markets work on reckless ambition, speculation and too much optimism. So you might get excited about the numbers in India, but they may not translate into sales. Not because Gen Z doesn’t have the money to buy, but because they don’t need to buy.
What’s the larger vision?
I want to create a business that outlasts me. If I wanted to make money, which we do, I could have taken a shorter route: franchise the brand, decrease quality and increase scale. I want to stay in the realm of luxury while creating different entry points. So, cosmetics and shoes will come in, sunglasses are already on their way, we’re doing small leather goods, there’s jewellery, and there will be more accessible jewellery.
Everybody is chasing the bottom because the pie is so much bigger. But if you look at the size of our business, chasing the top is substantial too.