‘Log kya kahenge?’

“Do you think Hisar would ever accept us?” reads the image caption featured in the Homecoming campaign for Shehar, a menswear label by Akshat Bansal

Ten years ago, I wouldn't have allowed it," Tarun Tahiliani says, describing the lookbook for his spring/summer 2023 menswear campaign that embraces a softer, more sensual side of masculinity rather than the luridly retro idea of the super-buffed archetype. Shot by Hormis Antony Tharakan at a palace on the outskirts of Patiala, the campaign revisits the veteran couturier's expressions of the kurta, anchkan, sherwani and bandgala. But its beauty lies elsewhere.

Saurabh Maurya, Akshat Bansal and Tarun Tahiliani

There is a sensitivity with which Tahiliani directs the lens on model Prabh Uppal, sometimes framed fleetingly; at other times, poised; his teasing gaze burrowing deep into the viewer. "I was bored of my campaigns; they had a stiffness about them. The younger generation is not driven by normative structures; they are free to think and be," Tahiliani, 60, explains. Fashion, Tahiliani asserts, has to reflect the mood of the time and place. "India is straddling worlds and many identities and finding a new voice. A designer's job is to capture the spirit of society when it is in flux and become an agent, arbitrator and provocateur of this shift."

For his spring/summer 2023 campaign, couturier Tarun Tahiliani dressed model Prabh Uppal in classic ivory silk kurta paired with pre-draped dhoti and traditional bling

Often enough derisory adjectives like beautiful or tender are reserved for women. Yet, those are the words that come to mind for this menswear campaign. The styling flair is so stealthy, it is almost guerrilla. Items designed for the occasion wear market are deconstructed and reassembled. Kurtas are buttoned-down to skate the navel. A sherwani is worn over a naked tattooed torso. The dhoti is devised to stroke unwaxed calves. Bridal jewellery, including a delicate haath phool, toe rings, tiered pearl and emerald necklaces are flaunted by the men, contributing to one of the most coherent even if daring statements yet to come from the couturier whose legacy involves hyper-masculinity taking after the Indian maharaja prototype.

Historically, India celebrated [gender] fluidity and sexiness as an expression, argues Tahiliani. Travel to the interiors, he urges, and you will see body-confident men with [body] piercings, jewellery, flowers, kajal… "Somewhere, it all got twisted and became square thanks to colonialism, followed by an uptight brand of Victorian schooling."

The backless tailored shirt featured as part of Margn's fall/winter 2023 collection looked at handicraft techniques of sujani, quilted entirely on a handloom using deadstock fabrics, and sikki, a hand-coiling method entailing moonj grass to create body armor-like pieces

Why should women have all the fun?" asks Akshat Bansal, 32. "Men have no breasts to hide; why can't they wear sheer? We want our clients to step out of their comfort zone and express themselves." He is talking about his "gender-agnostic" designs that feature bodysuits, boxy jackets in tie-dye, peplum and leotard styles, sheer high-waist trousers that speak of precision tailoring, offset by slits or cutout placements.

Luckily, his svelte proposals crafted from a hybrid of textile-meets-tech materials like rubber, vegan leather and recycled plastic has found a market in India. Bansal tells us that he has sold six translucent green rubber jackets, and 16 pieces of inverted V-shaped sculpted bodysuits which expose most of the side waist, and continues to get repeat orders from his male clients. "Sometimes, I am shocked at how much consumers are experimenting with fashion; they are not too hung-up on log kya kahenge? [What will people say?]," explains Bansal. Since founding Bloni in 2017, a label inspired by concepts of anatomy and body politics, he has been fastidious about doing things differently.

In 2020, Bansal started work on Shehar, a menswear brand that is focused on "mapping cities with histories through the lens of design and culture". "I am an Indian designer first. I understand that there is a need for classic Indian wear."

Bansal of Bloni has created a "gender agnostic" cape silhouette, combining recycled PET material and vegan leather with amethyst and tourmaline stones. "It is size and gender agnostic, and could be paired with shorts, trousers or a skirt"

Homecoming, his debut campaign in 2022, was envisioned as an ode to Hisar, his hometown and also the address of his first flagship store. The campaign's photo-essay disrupted the narrative from the obvious fashion centres. Instead, it was a nod to the vernacular of small-town friendships, following four lads coming together to celebrate an Indian wedding. Framed in low-light by Nishanth Radhakrishnan, the candid images captured the naïve optimism of the young as they romped around Hisar, navigating its crammed bylanes on a motorbike. The image of two friends posing outside a temple arch prophesies the ongoing debate on marriage equality, this writer reminds Bansal. "I understand the irony here," he says. "But you don't need labels to express love. The idea here was to celebrate friendships; whether this raw intimacy is interpreted as romantic or plain friendly… that's up to the viewer."

The story of Margn's backless shirt goes like this: co-founder Saurabh Maurya was playing with proportions of a shirt in order to reuse surplus stock. The shoulders could be tailored shorter, or perhaps cut the sleeves narrow so they cling at the wrist and not look stuffy. He imagined every pattern and seam, but not what emerged out of this experiment: a backless shirt. The design made its debut as part of the fall/winter 2023 collection, and the label has already sold 15 pieces.

Today, with gender identities and socially constructed performances crumbling quicker than ever, the idea of what makes a man has never been more fluid. Which also makes a label like Margn, founded in 2020 to explore the buffeted nature of modern masculinity against the physicality of the male body, ever more purposeful. "We envision creating clothes using masculinity as a characteristic rather than a gender trait," says Maurya, 27, who founded the label with Ranjit Yadav.

Designers don't "create clothes for the queer" but you can certainly make a nuanced statement, or tailor your clothes to become more acceptable to all men - men who love women, men who love men, men who love men and women. As Maurya says: "Why have we forgotten that masculinity is in itself a broad, beautiful and diverse spectrum?"