The final word on swimwear fashion in India, Shrivannarresh is the brainchild of Shrivan Bhatia and Narresh Kukreja, the first Indian winners of the Mittlemoda Beachwear Award (in Bali, 2006) and friends for over a decade. Their story began soon after graduating from the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), when they were given the opportunity to complete their education in Italy and were invited by Mare Di Moda to showcase and launch their brand Shrivannaresh at Cannes, at Europe’s biggest swimwear exposition.

With their customers being mostly women from their late 20s, the duo believes in “designing for world citizens – for the sophisticated and the classy.” There’s no shortage of absolute absurdity in this vocation: like the time when, “one of our walk-in customers asked to buy our piece which she thought was to be used as a life-jacket.” Sure, they may not be designing bikini-life jackets yet, but they do know how to create India’s only seamless line of swimwear. Being the stylesmiths of the sea and sand, funnily, “as much as we love the sea, none of us saw a beach for the first 17 years of our lives.” Leaving their wet footprints on the sands of style, their goal includes a whopping 200-strong army of store spread across beaches.

Coming back to two words for the princely duo of beachwear: ‘avant-garde’, a phrase that sums them up perfectly.

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