When 18-year-old Abran Deepak talks about slow fashion and wanting to support the weavers of Chendamangalam, it could come across as precocious. But looking at his work, one can see that he is walking the talk. 

The Onam collection, by his eponymous label Abran Couture, comprises four outfits, most of which are made of handloomed fabric. “The collection is bespoke, custom-made,” he says, adding, “I support handloom. I want to promote slow fashion and the craftsmanship of local artisans. And this time I have focussed on Kochi’s own, from Chendamangalam.” 

The teenager, who recently finished school, has taken a gap year to figure out how or where he wants to learn fashion design. Meanwhile, he is custom-designing garments for his clients and building his portfolio. For someone who started with designer masks during the pandemic at 13 and began designing at 14, Abran proves this is not a fad.

Now that he is done with school, he says he has time to focus on designing, because earlier he “somehow” found a balance between schoolwork and designing. “If you love doing something, you find a way to do it.” The young designer is self-taught, learning what he knows on stitching and cutting online. 

Though he has primarily designed for men, he says he would like to design for women, “I like to do women’s wear, because there are so many options to choose from!”

For his Onam edit, he has drawn inspiration from Keralam’s clothing past, “I was browsing through old photographs of Malayali women, when I stumbled on some images of the women of the Cochin Royal Family. Something I saw there was the main inspiration for one of the main garments — the randaam mundu top with chuttikkara.” Chuttikkara is one of the traditional designs on the traditional mundu, a crossborder design. The other is Puliyilakkara, a ribbed/striped border, supposedly inspired by the leaves of the tamarind tree. A strappy dress made of chuttikkara mundu, and two blouses (one combined with a mundu and duppatta) make the capsule Onam collection.

He can be reached on his Instagram handle @abrancouture.