30 years of Tarun Tahiliani’s India-Modern creativity

Indian fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani is set to mark three decades in the fashion industry with a commemorative presentation on January 16—an ode to his enduring philosophy of refined simplicity and effortless elegance. For this milestone moment, Tahiliani has chosen The Residency, Hyderabad, a venue that beautifully mirrors his design language, where Indian heritage seamlessly converges with Mughal grandeur and colonial British influences.

Reflecting on his formative years in post-Partition India, Tahiliani recalls growing up in a society that was at once socialist and deeply westernised. Educated in English and encouraged to admire British etiquette, architecture, and sartorial codes, he notes, “we were subtly distanced from our own indigenous traditions.” The India of his youth, he says, was shaped by a Western gaze—where modernity was often equated with what came from elsewhere. Fashion, for Tahiliani, became a powerful means of reclaiming and redefining that narrative.

An alumnus of The Doon School and St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, Tahiliani went on to earn an MBA from the Wharton School of Business before pursuing formal training in fashion design at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology—a journey that ultimately led him to craft a distinctly Indian yet globally resonant design vocabulary.

Tahiliani’s entry into fashion became a journey across India itself --through handloom clusters and embroidery ateliers, through age-old draping traditions and masterful dyeing practices. Along the way, he discovered the depth of India’s aesthetic language: richly layered, deeply intellectual, and strikingly modern—long before modernity was framed through a Western lens.

This evolving journey also marked defining milestones: the launch of Ensemble, India’s first designer store, in 1987; a landmark collaboration with Aditya Birla Fashion Retail Ltd that gave rise to the label Tasva in 2021; and the debut of his own luxury prêt label, OTT, in 2024.

“This journey became the seed for India Modern, not as a nostalgic return to the past, but as a contemporary synthesis of who we are, where we come from, and what we can become when we acknowledge every influence, every inheritance, with honesty and pride. It has been 30 years of that journey—of restoring pride, reviving lost traditions, and reframing my perception of India not as a static museum of heritage but as a dynamic, evolving aesthetic,” he says. “And so, it felt only right that our 30-year showcase be held at a place that physically embodies that vision: The British Residency in Hyderabad, a structure, whose style is British but whose soul is unmistakably Indian. It stands at the intersection of two worlds that have shaped the way I think, feel and design.”

Built in the early 1800s by James Achilles Kirkpatrick, the British Resident at the Nizam's court, the Residency is an extraordinary Palladian mansion, reminiscent of the White House—grand Corinthian columns, sweeping staircases, chandeliered halls. It was constructed by local craftsmen, overseen by Kirkpatrick himself, and embedded in the context of Hyderabad's Indo-Islamic court culture. “This was not a foreign imposition; it was a collaboration. And that word—collaboration—is everything. And, The Residency is not just a backdrop. It is part of the White Mughal story – the very story that underpins the philosophy of this show.”

Tahiliani says William Dalrymple's White Mughals chronicles the remarkable, little-known romance between Kirkpatrick and Khair-un-Nissa, a noblewoman from Hyderabad's Shia elite. “He converted to Islam to marry her, adopted Indian dress, customs, and ways of life, and their children were raised in Indian garb, born in zenana quarters he built for her. One of the buildings associated with their life, a miniature plaster model of the Residency built by Kirkpatrick for his wife, stood neglected for years. Now, thanks to the World Monuments Fund and the tireless efforts of Shalini Bhupal, it has been lovingly restored. This restoration is not just architectural. It is symbolic.”

Tahiliani says Dalrymple ends his book with the idea that East and West have never truly been irreconcilable – that this imagined "clash of civilizations" is a myth, and that history offers us a far more complex, hopeful, and interwoven story. “The White Mughal period stands as a reminder that cultural mingling once came naturally, before Empire hardened its lines. That moment—of openness, curiosity, and exchange—is what we celebrate in this show. And that is why this monument, this story, and this city are the only place where our 30-year milestone could be staged.”

As Tarun Tahiliani marks his 30 years of shaping Indian fashion, his anniversary showcase on January 16 stands as more than a celebration of longevity. Set against the storied backdrop of The Residency Hyderabad, the presentation becomes a living metaphor for Tahiliani’s enduring belief that true modernity emerges not from erasure, but from synthesis and in honouring history while continually reimagining it.