AGAMA: Sanjay Garg’s discovery deepens
In the last 17 years, Sanjay Garg, via his label Raw Mango, has carved a singular path, not as a custodian of heritage but as its most unexpected disruptor. Garg has chosen a more complex and often more courageous path – one that questions, reimagines, and, at times, rewrites the way Indian hand-woven cloth is perceived and worn, from his early days at textile bazaars and modest trade shows, championing the sari with an idiosyncratic but deeply informed eye. And at a time when the sari was still finding a renewed space beyond nostalgia or occasion wear, Garg approached it with both irreverence and reverence.
What began as a quiet revivalist’s endeavour has evolved into a design language marked by radical restraint, inventive weaves, and collaborations that blur the lines between tradition and provocation. Garg’s introduction of stretch and Lycra into handloom, his uncompromising vision for campaign imagery, his showcasing of textiles he makes as museum pieces, and his ongoing dialogue with craftspeople, creatives, and cultural thinkers all speak to a designer who builds not just clothes but ideas. Garg steps into a ritualistic realm with Agama, where hybrid weaves and mixed media become the grammar of memory and movement. The collection feels like an invocation and evolution, a visual chant in which textiles and images coexist in harmony. In this conversation, Garg reflects on the philosophies behind Agama, the discipline of innovation, and why, for him, the loom is always a place of return.
Vinita Makhija: What is the most important inheritance you have received from your family?
Sanjay Garg: The culture I grew up in is the gift I got, which I didn’t understand until much later. I still cannot fully weigh it. To fully understand your culture, you must spend time away from it. I’ve realised this more and more over the years. Everyone asks me where my aesthetic sense comes from, how I was educated about art and design, and the intangible aspects that are yet visible. That is a credit to my childhood years, without being consciously aware of what I got from my experience of culture. As you know, India lives in villages.
Seeing culture, craft, textile – everything very closely – you only realise its value when you leave it.
VM: Conversely, when you think about the legacy – design or otherwise – you are creating and what we will eventually inherit from you, what becomes the most important thing?
SG: This is an ongoing discussion about craft, tradition, and design. Nothing is permanent; it’s a continuous process. Like the human race, design has its journey and is continuously growing. For instance, as we’ve seen, especially in India, design is very much about responding to the needs of the time, whether it is about solving for the climate and rising temperatures, or ever-changing possibilities of the future, informed by the past. Or designing for a person’s or a people’s individuality – there’s this unique perspective required to create for the culture of a specific geographical identity. I think that’s what heritage is, that’s the idea I want to leave behind. This ongoing, continuous dialogue is constantly growing and not removed from the need for design intervention.
VM: Recently, the chatter has been that Instagram is over; fashion campaigns no longer incite the awe and direction that designers were able to generate via grid launches. How does a cerebral brand like Raw Mango, whose campaigns changed the trajectory of India’s visual language, rise above the challenges of nuanced storytelling for an audience that has lost its attention span online?
SG: Storytelling, how you tell your story, what you create, and how you communicate it – doesn’t change with Instagram. Online and social media – this is just a medium.
We’ve always believed in creating experiences elsewhere, whether hosting people like Geoffrey Bawa, Shashi Tharoor, Dayanita Singh, or Ma Sheela to deliver talks at Raw Mango spaces. Or Baithaks (an intimate Indian gathering for music or dance, with artists and audience seated close together on the floor) – creating that platform for kala (art) to be experienced and enjoyed – be it with saperas (snaker charmers), kanhaiya dangal (a cultural event celebrated by the Meena and Gurjar communities in Eastern Rajasthan -where religious songs are sung to create a sense of brotherhood between villages or gidda (a folk dance form from Punjab) dancers or tabla, a pair of hand drums, the principal percussion instrument in Hindustani classical music, where it may be played solo, as an accompaniment with other instruments and vocals, or as a part of larger ensembles, artists, or even more established artists – like Hindustani classical singer Chhannulal Mishra and Kathak dancer Aditi Mangaldas.
We also continue to engage with the India Art Fair and the Chennai Photo Biennale. These are all aspects of our story that are not created online. Our philosophy is articulated across each touchpoint, extending beyond textiles and garments to the design of our stores. We are well aware of the shift in online engagement, and AI is also changing things, but ultimately, the story is in real life.
VM: Many young fashion brands are overselling the craft story, but India’s fashion is intrinsically connected to its craft story. In this case, do you think players like yourself, first movers, and purists need to create new roadmaps of discovery?
SG: I agree with you. I think overselling the craft story is an attempt to sell a sentiment, almost fetishising it and creating that irresistible emotional blackmail. Ultimately, the product must combine design, craftsmanship, and quality. We have very mindfully avoided using tempting words like “sustainable” and “slow fashion” that almost “emotionally blackmail” the client. I am always prepared for that competition, where a machine-made product is sold alongside a handmade one. Your product must be superior to anything else. There is no excuse. Unless you are able to create something special and capable of holding its own by hand, then it isn’t needed. That’s the challenge faced by designers and design students all over the world. Agama is a beautiful example of that common heritage, with different stories but a shared history and context.
VM: Your collections often engage with history, but not in a nostalgic way. Is Agama – or Raw Mango – an argument against the idea of “revivalism” in Indian craft?
SG: In a sense. . . . I always say that tradition isn’t passé, it is ongoing. It’s as much about the future as it is about the past. It’s a dialogue to which we are not a passive audience. For instance, language. Sanskrit is no longer spoken; it isn’t “continued.” I believe that we need to keep actively participating in language, keep on adding words and vocabulary, and let it be free-flowing while, of course, being mindful. Words like bazaar, yoga, and guru are now part of the English language. Again, nothing is permanent. It keeps on changing. Everything continues to evolve with time.
VM: What textile personally fascinates you the most?
SG: I think there are many for me, but one of my favourites is Mashru, a lustrous silk-cotton blend fabric named from the Arabic word for “permitted,” originally created because pure silk was not allowed for some Muslim men to wear. It’s the closest to my DNA. Textile is an extension of yourself; it’s your second skin, and it reflects who you are and what you believe. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, you’re constantly communicating something.
VM: As you grow deeper in your design journey, we notice you merging weaves and a design lexicon – for example, Ikat Mashru in Agama. What are some of the other textiles you are experimenting with?
SG: Brocades, right now. We’re exploring what a brocade with flexibility can look like, in a way that it almost behaves like a knit. When most people wear a blouse with a sari, we want to solve how we can incorporate that within the sari. We want to create a handloom product that becomes the future of textiles. Craft will be left behind unless there is design intervention. We are not about the revival of textiles as much as imagining textile futures.
Interview by Vinita Makhija.
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Further Information:
Raw Mango will be presenting 'It’s Not About The Flower 'Fall/Winter ’26 today (23 February) at 11:00am at London Fashion Week 2026.
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Image Credits:
All images: Raw Mango, Agama collection, 2025. Photography: Ashish Shah