Elitist in preference and fantasy, fashion has long been fascinated by royalty. Has fashion media fanned the fandom lately?

Recently, a press release about the inaugural exhibition at the new, Jaipur Centre of Art (JCA) ‘A New Way of Seeing’ fell into our inbox. The information used the title “HH Maharaja” for Sawai Padmanabh Singh of Jaipur, co-founder of the centre. The other founder, Noelle Kadar, was described as an “arts specialist”. Several photographic posts from JCA’s lavish opening at a beautiful event in Jaipur with film and fashion celebrities had already been seen on social media.

Padmanabh (also called Pacho by his friends) and his sister Gauravi Kumari (often titled “Princess” in the media) may have designed their PR with their titles front and centre. But they are not the only ones. Gauravi’s Instagram handle does not cite her title, yet she fronts the “Princess” Diya Kumari foundation, named after her mother, an elected BJP representative, and the Deputy CM of Rajasthan. The foundation enables skill development and employment for underprivileged women. Democracy, community and royalty curiously collide in this case.

This year, Italian shoe brand Jimmy Choo that added Gauravi as a brand ambassador used her title for official communication. U.S. Polo Assn did the same for Padmanabh announcing a collaborative collection with him at a coveted party at Jaipur’s City Palace in September. Polo and royalty remain close friends across the world, and in India royal families from Manipur to Rajasthan have espoused these partnerships. Earlier in the year, for the launch of The Palace Atelier, in the City Palace of Jaipur by Gauravi Kumari and Claire Deroo, Lovebirds designers Gursi and Amrita Singh presented a fashion show.

Prisms of Media Coverage

All events were generously covered by fashion, design and architecture media (including The Voice of Fashion which attended the Palace Atelier launch and the U.S. Polo collaboration party). Fashion glossies used HH and Princess titles for Padmanabh and Gauravi, but newspapers like The Hindu did not. A design magazine put Padmanabh on its cover with his title. In February—both Gauravi and Radhikaraje Gaekwad of Baroda were described with their respective titles at a luxury event by a fashion magazine.

Elsewhere, a travel magazine announced “India’s Best of 2024” honours. Several recipients are from erstwhile royal families and were described with their titles. “Yuvraj”, “Yuvrani” “Rajkumari” “HH” “Maharajkumar”, “Maharajkumari” “HH Maharani”.

People in the know declined to comment if the use of titles were mandated by the personalities. Yet, if magazines and event organisers backed by sponsors do so through publicity and promotion, these titles must be acceptable to them?

Lifestyle media’s fondness for royals and their titles is among fashion’s oldest vanities. Over centuries, royal patronage has nurtured crafts, textiles, traditions besides being an unshakeable inspiration. But this article is not to gush about Indian royalty from the colonial era or before, the palace intrigues, Louis Vuitton trunks or bejewelled Karl Lagerfeld turbans.

This is a here and now story. Especially, as there is a surge of contrary voices in Indian culture and fashion, who challenge hierarchies. It is, after all, the age of accessible and democratic fashion—not just in how it looks but in its very belief system. The word “inclusive” continues to trend.

Fashion media’s readiness to appease members of former royal families through their titles is also curious today because those in public life lead community building and grassroot causes. Publicised appearances at fashion, art and beauty events are not the sum of their relevance.

For instance, Radhikaraje Gaekwad doesn’t just support the revival of the Baroda shalu for crafts conservation, she enables other small, less known units. She is also the founder of the café Gazra in Vadodara entirely run by a LGBTQ+ team. Gauravi and Padmanabh are being credited with adding to Jaipur’s growing brand value as a global city of cultural heft.

“We didn’t label it ‘royal’; it was the media that found the detail worth highlighting,” says Akshita.

Why Royalty Matters

An articulate defence comes from Akshita M. Bhanj Deo. Editor-in-chief of Travel + Leisure India and South Asia magazine. She belongs to the erstwhile royal family of Mayurbhanj and speaks here as director of the Mayurbhanj Foundation and co-owner of The Belgadia Palace in Odisha. She has a probingly progressive view on identity politics, liberal arts and human rights and spent a decade as she says, in corporate jobs in different countries before coming “home”. She and her sister have revived The Belgadia Palace as a heritage property in the tribal heartland in East Odisha. “We didn’t label it ‘royal’; it was the media that found the detail worth highlighting,” says Akshita. “There was a time my grandparents were embarrassed by the titular privilege as they were driven by sacrifices and philanthropy. They were freedom fighters and went to jail during the national movement.

Arguing that a vast majority from India’s remaining royal families are not even known by name, face or title, Akshita says her generation had to learn to be relevant outside the prism of privilege. She agrees there is a glamourisation, but urges attention to the repertoire of work done by members of former royal families that arches from photography to poetry, performative arts to cuisine and craft. Why keep the focus only on the debauchery, the parties, the Rolls Royce cars—clichés from the colonial era, she asks.

Akshita cites examples. The Film Heritage Foundation for instance founded by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, an archivist, restorer and filmmaker. The quiet contributions of the royal family of Manipur on the one hand, and on the other, the Rajkumari Amrit Kaur OPD Block and Nursing College at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi established by the royal family of Patiala.

The Outsider and the “Other”

There are other equally strong views. Like that of Mumbai based artist-designer Sudheer Rajbhar of Chamar Studio who believes fashion has an elitism complex and its favouritism to those with money and privilege makes him feel like an outsider. He named his brand “chamar”, name of an OBC caste now used as a caste-class slur that was hurled at his community. Intent to keep that identity alive while moving away from real animal leather (chamdi) to create art, Rajbhar, whose skill was noticed early during his years in a poor neighbourhood in Mumbai, would go on to appear in competitions, finally landing up in art school. Today, Chamar Studio which started as a project in Dharavi is a nomadic studio in slums. It makes bags, artistic pieces and artisanal furniture from recycled tires and tubes, exhibiting from India Art Fair in Delhi to Design Miami.

This year, Rajbhar was among the recipients of an honour from a fashion magazine. At the glittering Mumbai event, he says he was “reluctant” to socialise because “I was unsure if the privileged and those from former royal families present at the gathering would like to hang around with me. I don’t get a vibe of equality or comfort,” he says. Rajbhar left the party before picking up his trophy. His reluctance is entirely his own, and he blames no one for it, but his assumptions of fashion’s groupism, he says, go beyond this one instance. “Belonging to a royal family or having a silver spoon in your mouth doesn’t make anyone elite. Public intellectuals, writers, artists, thinkers are the elite in contemporary society.”

Royalty in Indian fashion alas is not just about titles. It is the most referenced inspirational mood board for couture, jewels, cars, watches, travel, wedding scenography, cuisine and gifting—an industry which recreates palatial ideas ad nauseum.

Members of royal families are not the only ones asserting privilege and class in modern society,” says Rasika Wakalkar of TVAM Foundation and Pune-based Studio Rudraksh. Last year, Wakalkar’s Foundation presented an exhibition of 20 curated textiles from Deccani and Maratha regions. Titled Kath Padar: Paithani & Beyond, the exhibition held in Paithan town collaborated with the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums in Maharashtra. The textiles were drawn from the archives of three government museums where some accession notes point to the provenance from erstwhile royal and aristocratic patronage. Wakalkar emphasises that not only have members of erstwhile royal and aristocratic families gone out of their way to support research and documentation without asking for credit by name, but many visited the exhibition without alerting the media. “The role of royal families in the patronage of craft and textiles remains unparalleled in Indian cultural history,” says Wakalkar citing instances of unassuming former royals.

This is a here and now story. Especially, as there is a surge of contrary voices in Indian culture and fashion, who challenge hierarchies.

Questions No One Asks

To debate this, The Voice of Fashion proposed a ‘Questions No One Asks’ panel at Lakmé Fashion Week’s March edition in Mumbai this year. The aim was to talk about fashion and royalty, the bias included. Among the invited panellists were Radhikaraje Gaekwad and Gauravi Kumari. The former agreed with enthusiasm. Gauravi too was keen, but had a previous commitment to a family wedding. The panel never took place owing to logistic reasons.

However, soon after, we invited Radhikaraje to write a guest article on this subject. She wrote without sounding like a maharani. She agreed that almost eighty years after the abolishment of princely states, the world’s fascination including for royal titles perpetuates. “From polo playing princes with elaborate turbans and glistening gold buttons to post-purdah maharanis with sweetheart neckline blouses and head covering pastel chiffons, Indian royalty has continued to fascinate the East and West alike,” she said. She made other pertinent points arguing that members of royal families have an inherent ability to communicate with cross-sections of the population, across classes and castes from politics to women’s issues and crafts conservation. This adds to their modern relevance. “It is not about appearances at fashion gatherings. There is a lot else that goes on and no media is invited to observe it,” said Radhikaraje.

Designer Gursi Singh of Lovebirds who collaborated on a fashion show at Jaipur’s Palace Atelier this year, believes the pedestal of royalty is a double-edged sword. But it is the intent that matters. “While it is a bonus how associations like this amplify a project’s reach and appeal, in very many cases, it can serve as a powerful bridge to reviving and sustaining crafts,” says Singh. He adds that for Lovebirds “it was a conscious choice to lean into the cultural context rather than glorify the singular idea of royalty.”

Their experience told them that Gauravi and Claire thought of their fashion collaboration in a carefully deliberative manner like their other work. “They have previously focussed on dismantling structural biases, providing women of backward castes access to vocational training and jobs attempting to diversify who gets a seat at the table.”

Chhapri Fashion?

Chennai-based designer and blogger Purushu Arie who has formerly spoken about the absence for the Dalit voice in Indian fashion brings a levelling rationale. Trained at the National Institute of Fashion Design (NIFT) in New Delhi, he says his early years as a fashion student and blogger exposed him to the fact that there were innumerable references to nawabs, royals, palaces, princesses, their jewels and clothes and almost none to street culture in India. “It has never been a strong reference point.” There are no parallels in India to hip hop or other such styles in the West on Indian ramps or in high fashion references. Arie says that the idea of the marginalised or class and caste issues continue in many forms even on social media: “Consider the term ‘chhapri’ which is pan Instagram. It makes a mockery from marginalised people from slums and their style.” Arie believes terms like “Dalit designer” are as complex and a double-edged sword as are “Prince” or “Maharani”.

As the story churns it seems apparent, that titles or not, fashion’s relationship with royalty will change and evolve. “We continue to reinvent our role in society, carrying lightly the grandeur of the past and legacy of yore, working hard to be remembered for more than just our wardrobe,” says Radhikaraje, insightfully.

As is one from Akshita. “It is not who they are, it is what they represent,” she says putting a third person distance between her and the subject of this story.

This writer, however, taking the term from Arie, wonders if “chhapri fashion” will make its debut on the ramp in 2025—the 25th year of Indian fashion weeks? And, who will be the showstopper?