Vrinda Sachdev could be the life of any party. Her cheerful disposition was the first thing we noticed when we dropped by for the launch of the celebratory ‘Shaam’, a festive-wedding ’23-24 edit by Qbik, that she and her husband Gurinder Singh ran, at their flagship store at The Dhan Mill, Chhatarpur, Delhi. A vibe that matched the spirit of the collection too. Happy and, of course, bright with the “fusion” touch that had been the brand’s DNA ever since it began its journey a dozen years back.
We couldn’t take our eyes off this white sari that was from Qbik’s autumn-winter collection, ‘Dhaatu’, that seemed bedecked with silver jewellery. “It looks like jewellery. We have used them in clusters. It’s minimal, Westernised and pure metal. We’ve ideated three more underwires and mostly tone-on-tone outfits. There is no contrast play as such that you see in ‘Shaam’. But there is a lot of ornamentation. The textures and shapes have been created by us and then polished by us,” said Vrinda. She felt fusion was always a superhit because of its versatility
“’Shaam’ is everything that Gurinder, my partner and husband, and I are all about. We do a lot of fusion and crafts and colours. We are not afraid to use colours and crafts together and ‘Shaam’ is basically born out of all of that. Festivities, brightness and nip in the air. We have been doing Kashmiri since 2019, but it’s only now, I feel, after so many years that people have really started recognising that this kind of Kashmiri is what Qbik does. If we have Kashmiri, we don’t just put it out there. We mix it with our own elements like metal, or a really cool underwired blouse or great skirts or jackets. We’d do really nice layered Nehru jackets, layered bandhgalas, but at the same time keeping it to a level that everyone can get their hands on. It is not specifically for some market,” said Vrinda, taking us around the cosy 2,000sq ft store.
A blend of traditional art with the modern, ‘Shaam’ launched with kurtas, lehngas, pantsuits, shararas and ghararas for women and bandhgala, Indo-westerns, Nehru jacket, sherwani and kurtas for men. There were batuas and footwear for women too.
The architectural motifs looked statement. “This time in our festive-wedding collection, we are using an artwork created in-house which is called ‘Cityscape in an Ideal World’. There is no religion, but just artwork. It’s not that people haven’t done buildings before, but I wanted to do it in my way wherein I highlight every pillar in a way or the tiles or the tomb. I have used it on the sleeves, the cuff of the shirts or on a jacket. There is a lot of grandness,” said Vrinda.
‘Shaam’ featured intricate Kashmiri embroidery on pashmina silk and was fused with ikat in some of the pieces. They came embellished with glass, stones, metal art, mirrorwork and beadwork.
“We are about fusing totally different elements to make one wholesome look. We used an ikat from Andhra (Pradesh) and mixed it with Kashmiri embroidery. Instead of doing only gold, we have gone into gunmetal embroideries this time with our Kashmiris and it is standing out really well,” said Vrinda.
While the menswear was dapper, the inherent oomph in the womenswear was a winner for us, especially the gorgeously sexy underwired blouses, a brand signature. “We are getting a trademark because we are seeing a lot of people copying it in a bad way. It’s already in process,” said Vrinda.
She looked back at the decade as a vital lesson in retail. “The journey has been slow and stagnant in the first 10 years. It’s actually when we moved here in Dhan Mill two-and-a-half years back, we realised that we are being appreciated by people we always wanted to cater to. Location plays such an important role and we had no idea,” said Vrinda.
She shared that Qbik would be soon opening in Hyderabad. “It will open early next year, our second flagship in the country after this. We are very excited because Hyderabad is a market that has a lot of appetite and... since it has that appetite, we need to get into it, right now. It’s an old Hyderabadi bungalow that we are converting into a fusion (space),” signed off Vrinda.
We say, all the best.
Vrinda Sachdev and Gurinder Singh at the launch of ‘Shaam’ by Qbik, at their flagship store in The Dhan Mill, Delhi. “How a cube has different sides and how everything comes together to form one unifying shape... this is what we do at Qbik. Gurinder and I are very different from each other, but when we come together to make a collection, it would seem that it’s all made by one person. While he designs menswear, I do womenswear,” said Vrinda.