Dhruv Bandil’s clothing feels like the exhilarating high when you’re an hour deep into the bowels of a techno rave. Symbolism, fantasy and an electric energy are solid promises encapsulated in his clothing. It’s what won the Central Saint Martins MA graduate the prestigious L’Oréal Professionnel Creative Award coveted by the universities’ top design students back in 2023. Previously, its recipients have been Grace Wales-Bonner and Richard Malone, amongst others.

Bandil’s tantalising clothing bagged the top spot for the effortless way sportswear structures merged into 3D knits punctuated by acidic splashes of colour. The 3D shapes were picked up from temple sculptures he has grown up seeing on family holidays and weekend trips. But instead of looking at religious symbolism as his inspiration, Bandil sees these caricatures cemented in the walls as divine beings holding the answer to life, he elaborates on the pull of fantasy and the escape it offers through his collection.

“Fashion was always a goal, I knew this would happen eventually,” he admits, explaining his foray into design. “I always liked to get my hands dirty. I remember when I was a child, I was alone at home and I decided to paint the walls of my room with colours using a T-shirt,” remembers Bandil fondly. Of course, this impulsive use of colour also sees its beginnings in his graduate collection, titled ‘Awakening Kakanmath Kalavatis’, and perhaps something that was also informed by the two years before the pandemic that he spent working under designer Manish Arora, who is known for his over-the-top sequin and neon indulgences.

The graduate collection reveals Bandil’s origins but also his new identity as a designer. You could call Bandil’s shift from his hometown in Morena, Madhya Pradesh, to London two starkly different worlds sitting at polarities but somehow, a perfect marriage of experiences that fed into his work. One, a quite small district where chill hangs with friends including taking a joy ride, biking across the streets and stumbling upon old temple ruins— and the other, where halls decorated with scribbles from some of fashion’s biggest design minds will haughtily greet you with a challenge. Not to mention the buzzing London nightlife scene, which has often been a medium of escape for many of its renowned alumni.

“I learnt about how to bring in the fashion at CSM, and how to find my own identity within that. We were a bunch of 40 students and every person had their own identity so it was easy to cross out what wasn’t something that I wanted to do,” he explains. His time at the National Institute of Fashion Technology in Mumbai finishing a BA in fashion design was a larger pursuit of building his technical abilities, while at CSM the pressure was more on developing his existing skills into wearable narratives.

“I used to have many breakdowns after my juries,” he confesses with a laugh, easing into the conversation as we exchange memories as university students. “Do you remember the Waitrose in front of the university? And the canal in front of it? I would buy an ice cream tub after my tutorials and eat it all by myself,” he sheepishly divulges. Bandil’s schedule was that of any graduate getting by on Gatorade fumes, which required him to leave campus at 10 PM to finish dyeing, printing and sewing his fabrics together well into the early hours of the day. “I used to live in basic sportswear because I found it really comfortable, and that somehow also informed the way my collection eventually shaped up,” he says.

The silhouettes spanned the spectrum from basketball shorts to protective gear that morphed shape into pants and tops that mimicked padding for NFL jocks. Scraps of dead stock material, some with clear hallmarks of performance fabrics, were dyed in aggressive shades of orange, pink, and lime green, and juxtaposed with sculptural 3D shapes Bandil picked up from his cosmic inspiration—the ruins of Kakanmath temple situated near his hometown—where wall sculptures depicted life stories in ancient times. Bandil was obsessed. “Sometimes your consciousness is inherited, it’s not something you can necessarily control, so you find connections to your surroundings that you cannot explain,” he says. “Fantasy is something that I really love about fashion. It might be a good jacket or a shirt, done and dusted, but if it has some element of fantasy, that really speaks to me. Like some of Galliano’s 1998 collections were my favourite.” As introspective and sombre as the designer’s process and inspirations may sound, the final result is a cathartic release dotted with colour and shape.

Research is an integral part of Bandil’s approach to designing, so while the inspiration struck from home, his research led him to the lives of 90s London club kids and the Muria tribe in Madhya Pradesh and their clothing which both played a part in solidifying the designs. The unserious twist to his fashion starts to make sense when you add the lens of club kids, the heady days of Leigh Bowery’s vibrant nightlife, and a unique style of escapism captured in boisterous combinations of pants, basketball shorts, corsetted and padded blouses in a riot of shades with silhouettes that disrupt sporting uniforms. His clothes have also found him a new client roster that sees Björk and stylists dressing the likes of Tyla among it. While currently custom-creating pieces for his shiny new buyers that come knocking at his door, Bandil—operating his practice from Morena— is on the precipice of launching a new collection that expands on his MA show offering with more detail-oriented pieces.

Photographer: Dhruvin Shah

Photo Assistance: Om Ram

Stylist: Sanoori Jain

Art Director: Tia Chinai

Hair and Makeup Artist: Eshwar Log

Hair and Makeup Assistant: Khushi Patodia

Editorial Coordinator: Kaushek Haldar

Models: Nin Kala, Ishaan Menon from Current Management

Skin Prep Partner: D'you