Ahead of LFW Debut, Raw Mango Founder Sanjay Garg on the Brand's Global Moment

Sanjay Garg has always moved at his own tempo—unhurried, instinctive, and quietly radical. When Raw Mango launched 18 years ago, handwoven textiles were still largely spoken of in reverential, museum-bound tones. Garg did something altogether different: he made them cool. Stripped of nostalgia and excess artifice, his Chanderi saris became objects of modern desire—graphic, sensual, and unmistakably Indian.

Today, Raw Mango stands as a shorthand for ethnic elegance, its visual language instantly recognisable, its cultural impact undeniable. As the label crosses continents—having showcased at a textile exhibition in Paris, and gearing up for its first-ever show at London Fashion Week in February 2026—Garg gets candid on why the time is right for Raw Mango to make its mark on the global stage and how he feels his work can shape future narratives.

Robb Report (RR): Why does London Fashion Week, and why now, feel like the right moment for your first international runway debut?

Sanjay Garg(SG): In 2008, we established textile design as a vibrant, viable and versatile mode of creative expression in the Indian fashion landscape, which was at the time buried in heavy embellishment. Our garments created space for textiles in the industry and were quickly embraced by women across generations who required a visual vocabulary clearly separate from the one that mainstream fashion afforded them.

Today, Raw Mango reimagines how textiles can shape identity — not as objects of nostalgia, but as vessels for future narratives. Raw Mango now encompasses everything from garments to store design, spatial experiences, visual storytelling, and cultural programming — all suffused within India’s layered socio-cultural landscape. I think this is the perfect time for Raw Mango to make our mark on the global stage.

RR: What does showing in London represent at this stage of your journey?

SG: It represents a crystallised, articulated vision of how we want to represent India. This vision is still open to dialogue, as that is at the heart of the brand.

Over the last 16 years, we have perfected our craft practice and honed our point-of-view in relation to fashion, textile, and culture. Every collection, every innovation we’ve done in the past decade and a half has been another step in a journey that has taken us from being the upstart with a unique perspective to setting the context for conversations about craft in fashion.

RR: Do you think Indian craft has often been framed through an “exotic” lens internationally—and how do you intend to challenge or reframe that narrative at LFW?

SG: Yes, Indian fashion, particularly when shown abroad, has often been crafted to fit an orientalist fantasy. We are projected as a land where execution, not creative thinking, happens. India is imagined as a place where craftsmen embroider all day and all night. This collection challenges that perception. It represents India not just as a place of great artisanal skill but also a place where creative labour is abundant. Where the imagination and the intellect flourish.

RR: Are there specific techniques, weaves, or stories in this collection that you felt were particularly important to introduce to a global fashion capital like London?

SG: The story we have chosen to tell in London is an important one, and it has been deliberately developed for this moment. Without giving too much away, what I can say is that textile innovation is at the core of this collection. Like always, we have used our unique perspective and place in the world to create garments that may question expectations and play with the rules of textile and fashion. But no spoilers, you’ll see exactly what we mean on the 23rd of February.

RR: How is this collection different from what Raw Mango typically shows in India—emotionally, aesthetically, or structurally

SG: This is a collection that is true to our brand in every sense. It does not break with our aesthetic or emotion. It simply represents our version of India on a global stage: a story that we have refined since 2008, and are now more than happy to share with the world.

RR: Colour has always been central to Raw Mango’s identity. How does colour function in this collection, especially in a London context?

SG: Colour is central to India; we live and dream in hues. This collection highlights some of the colours that have been central to our palette since inception. Some of these were considered ‘unsophisticated’ in the development of the global fashion vocabulary historically. For example, certain pinks and greens that we cherish could have been considered ‘jarring’ by some. However, we show how it is these very colours that can come together to make for incredible creations. They can bring life to urban contexts abroad, as they do in India.

RR: How do you communicate the value of time-intensive craft to an audience accustomed to instant fashion?

SG: Our textiles and creations are time-intensive to create, and a lot of the thinking is spent on research and ideation. The time-intensivity is not only in the embroidery or ornamental execution. So, these are not garments that will carry information like: ‘ this dress took 200 hours to make.’ We don’t quantify either the intellectual or the physical labour that goes into our creations. Nor do we feel the need to categorise our work as ‘slow fashion’ – we have always been intentional about what we make, and many indigenous practices transcend this category, developed by the West.