Since 2010, India’s first luxury holiday brand, SHIVAN & NARRESH, has treated the world of resort wear as a canvas for global exploration. For their latest summer collection, Matisse, designers Shivan Bhatiya and Narresh Kukreja have staged a brilliant creative rebellion against the traditionally plain and muted codes of the wilderness. Spanning 50 meticulously crafted looks, the duo’s Matisse series plunges headfirst into the vivid, emotion-driven world of Henri Matisse, the French master of Fauvism.
The collection unfolds across two distinct print narratives. The first chapter, Zuri, draws directly from the intimate, architectural interiors of Matisse’s works, most notably The Window, Still Life with Lemons, and Interior with Egyptian Curtains. Zuri introduces an earthy palette of bone white, muted ochre, sand, smoke grey, and ink black. Here, the garments balance sharp tailoring with holiday ease, defined by sculptural pleating, textured patchworks, artisanal knotting, and hyper-dimensional knits in crisp cottons, billowy silks, chiffon, and linen.
In stark contrast, the collection’s second chapter, Maurice, unfolds through a high-vibrational resort lens. It was shaped by the painterly world of Matisse’s sun-drenched years on the French Riviera, which gave birth to The Blue Window, Bathers with a Turtle, Poppies, and Still Life with Apples on a Pink Tablecloth. Maurice comes to life with the vibrant Mediterranean flavour of these paintings, marked by fluid botanicals, gestural brushwork, and dramatic colour contrasts that capture the unrestricted freedom of the sea.
Below, Robb Report India sits down with Shivan Bhatiya and Narresh Kukreja to trace how a lifelong obsession with the French artist was translated into their latest drop.
Shivan & Narresh (S&N): We have loved Matisse right from our college days because of the loud and contrasting usage of colour in his works. So, he is one artist who has always been at the back of our minds, but we never got around to using him as an inspiration over the past one and a half decades. We love the artist so much that we even named our first adopted Indie dog Matisse because he’s a pitch-black dog and Matisse used a lot of black strokes in his paintings to pick out the colour. This long journey with the artist who has been so central to our journey — which strengthened after we brought our dog home — finally became a starting point for our latest collection.
A close look at Matisse’s works revealed that he was always in a resort-like mood. He would often paint the Mediterranean Sea through a window, so there is a sort of reminiscence in his work — he was already living the resort life. So we zoomed in further into his paintings to extract and repaint textures that we saw through this work.
S&N: Matisse’s work is very wide, and he used a lot of colours in his works, so we had to take a microscopic approach while taking inspiration. We identified certain colour palettes in his paintings that are now part of our latest drop. The collection seeks to romanticise safari holidays, because there is so much one does on such holidays besides going on game drives. Whether you are at the poolside, walking through nature trails, going for a river-side picnic, or getting a cocktail at sunset — the silhouettes of all these occasions have been encapsulated by this entire collection. Moreover, layering is a big part of safari dressing, much like Matisse’s paintings.
S&N: For us, a literal translation of an artwork is not an exciting design language. Instead, we like to tap into the emotions a painting evokes in us when we look at it. Every painting teaches you so many things, and especially with Matisse, his paintings teach you so much about layering colours and textures. Certain compositions of elements in his paintings also let you enter his emotional world, and that is what we have borrowed for our collection. In some of his works, you can see the sea and the sky and the trees, and Maurice essentially comes for this — the print itself bears these painterly techniques of visceral waves that you also see in his work.
There’s also a giant red flower motif in our collection. Matisse loved staying in Nice, where flowers and gardens are abundant, which often featured in his paintings, so we took note of that and reinterpreted it in our own way. It’s not about picking elements from a painting and using them literally. As designers, we believe there should always be some depth to where you start and where you end with your collection.
S&N: Olly, one of our most iconic bags, has made a comeback with this collection, and it’s always a head-turner. At the same time, it’s our most functional holiday bag because of just how much stuff fits in it. We also have the Pomsky bag for women, which is meant for carrying essentials for the day, but it camouflages as a great evening bag, so you don’t have to go back to your hotel to change your bag, whether you’re going from beach to bar or from safari to dinner. We also have an iconic feline duffel bag, which quite literally looks like an animal from the safari. When balancing utility versus design, we look after visual impact while also ensuring we are maximising space and minimising weight, especially for bags.
S&N: We were really lucky to start at the right place at the right time. When we started in 2010, social media was in its early days, millennials were taking over, and there was an unexpected rise in spending on experiences as opposed to products. This was a defining moment in luxury because all our clients were suddenly spending more money on travelling than ever before. A brand like ours enabled that because there weren’t any niche holiday-wear brands in the country then. Now, with the added rise in destination weddings, there has been a massive shift in how and why we travel, and all of this has only supported our growth, and we’re proud to have been part of this cultural change that we have undergone in the last decade and a half.