Image courtesies: www.locopopo.com, www.playclan.com

‘Cool Desi’ is the new urban Indian youth. Experimental, bold and colourful. Very Indian. Revivalism in a fun avatar! A funky contemporisation of anything old, anything local, anything commonplace in the daily life of India – art, craft, fashion and even language! Cool desi is a manifestation of the active sentiments of a new breed of proudly desi youngsters!

Image courtesies: www.artbyaarohi.com, www.happilyunmarried.com

Designers are going beserk these days…creatively beserk…and the results are quaintly inspiring to say the least! Our favourites are Aarohi Singh’s kitsch range, some of Lokesh Karekar’s works and Happily unmarried’s queer products.

Image courtesies: www.locopopo.com

Lokesh Karekar’s Locopopo is an exploration of his workstyles, his experiments. He draws his visual identity from Indian folk tradition and urban city life. His Illustrations for Chaitime’s packaging and instore wall & Artworks Done for IDN magazine and Tiger Translate GOLD book bear the stamp of urban India rooted in Indian ethos.

Image courtesies: www.theplayclan.com, www.telegraphindia.com

Play Clan founder, Himanshu Dogra’s work is a mix of pop art and kitsch with playful concepts based on the humour in Indian clichés. His collection includes stationery, hand-painted shoes, journals and bags depicting the ‘sab chalta hai attitude of Indians’ with everything from urban street graphics to street-lingo to Indian automobiles finding its way on these products. His products are based on tongue-in-cheek themes – like the ‘Indian Standard Tamasha’ depicting babus to politicians to autorickshaws to iconic city landmarks of Delhi and the ‘Loveless’ theme (which are anti-love merchandise consisting of tees, notepads and badges showing the loveless monster icon).

Image courtesy: www.theplayclan.com

Retail has not escaped this cool trend either. While products speaking the trend have stormed into retail outlets and found footing, there has been the rise of a new genre of stand-alone, ultra-cool outlets. Some like Levitate and Psy-baba in Bangalore have a rustic Indi-bohemian feel while others like Play Clan in Delhi have a more contemporary story. Play Clan has in fact imbibed this desi tune into it’s work culture successfully. In both cases, the language is very hip modern, fun and funky.