Garuda-SS Pour Nous
Daily wear made avant-garde. Garuda SS is a brand that focuses on product design and architecture as the basis of their clothing mantra, creating pieces that are practical, structurally innovative, and made with care.
In today’s day and age, fashion brands have become more than just clothing suppliers. Each brand aims to supersede its predecessors by being more sustainable, more consumer-friendly, and more socially conscious. This emphasis on bigger, better, stronger means that brands often miss the joy of design, opting for commercially successful clothing. By basing his inspiration in a product design and architectural approach to clothing, the creative director of Garuda SS, Suhail, redefines clothing. It becomes more than what you wear and, instead, how you present yourself. In an attempt to fight the mundane, Garuda SS is a brand whose very ideology is tailored towards its frequenters, providing a slow fashion alternative with a philosophy of the future.
Piece from the POUR MOI - Premium line. Available via Garuda_ss’s Instagram. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended.
Founded by Suhail Sahrawat in 2015, Garuda SS offers a range of clothing, from techwear to streetwear and even to premium options. Their current collections feature the Pour Toi collection, inspired by “silly” clothing that is ready to wear, a premium Pour Moi collection, and finally, a display of all clothing unhinged in their annual collection. Their latest annual collection, Heirlooms, pays homage to the head designer’s mother, Kiran, who ran a pioneering boutique in the 1980s–90s. This line “celebrates items that have been handed down from one generation to the next. Each piece is a nod to items that have been mended over time, embodying a patchwork rawness and unrefined beauty that tell stories of persistence, legacy, and unbreakable bonds.”
Three items from the HEIRLOOMS annual collection. Available via Garuda_ss’s Instagram. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended.
But what makes them different? Garuda SS stand out because of the ethics of care they display. One instance of this is the augmentation feature of every jacket, vest, and fleece item. Essentially, all Garuda SS outerwear has two zippers around the collar that match other items. This means that buyers can seamlessly zip a vest into a jacket to create a new, cohesive piece. Integrative design, such as the augmentation function, is a subtle display of creative ingenuity and attention to what consumers want. Another hallmark is the two plackets integrated into the waist of their blue pinstripe quarter placket. The purpose of these plackets is to effortlessly create a French tuck. One final example is their neck tag placement. Garuda SS recognizes that one of the most annoying things about clothing is the itchy neck tag designating size and fit. Their response is to create a stitching system in which red thread indicates size and to remove the neck tag altogether. Put together, these features point to a brand that actively thinks and places itself in the shoes of its consumers.
Two pieces from the Pour Toi - Ready to Wear Line. Available via Garuda_ss’s Instagram. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended.
What ties these aspects all together is the logic operating under their approach to product design. To them, clothing is made of building blocks and components that work together. In constantly reworking these components, the same items of clothing that customers find satisfactory are transformed into an extension of the body. This ideology of convenience is tailored to the linking of the customer and to the constant improvement of their quality of life through the clothing they wear. Furthermore, with a decentering on branding and a refocusing on style and aesthetic, Garuda SS resist the trend to tag clothing with a logo and instead are recognizable through their cohesive style.
