Suket Dhir is obsessed with detail and the emotional narrative. These attributes won him the International Woolmark Prize for menswear this year
Suket Dhir likes telling stories. his words conjure visuals of the Jats of Punjab riding on Royal Enfield Bullets in crisp white shirts with epaulettes and two front pockets. His appearance is inspired by the same imagery: Long-haired, with a salt-and-pepper beard and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
His work, too, is a reflection of his raconteur personality: His latest collection, for instance, is influenced by his childhood, by the time he shared with his grandfather, running freely in the mango orchards of Banga, Punjab. The six looks he crafted were inspired by his grandfather’s immaculate dressing sense, he says. He’d wear a flawless white shirt and throw on a jacket. Even his pajamas were crisply ironed.
It is this collection that won the 36-year-old Delhi-based designer, on January 13, 2016, the International Woolmark Prize for menswear at Pitti Duomo, Florence—an honour previously received by Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent. Dhir is the first Indian to win this recognition in the menswear category; Rahul Mishra won the prize in 2014, for womenswear.
The narrative element in his work caught the eye of the jury too. Suzy Menkes, fashion editor for international editions of Vogue online, who was on the jury for the Woolmark Prize, mentions the reasons for selecting SuketDhir, his eponymous label, as the winner. “Even coming from different positions in the fashion world, we all agreed that emotion had to be at the heart of the selection,” she wrote on the Vogue UK website.
Dhir’s capsule collection of oversized ikat suits that combined Western tailoring with Indian detail won him AU$100,000. By March-end, the ensemble will be available in over a dozen of the world’s most prestigious stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue in New York and 10 Corso Como in Milan.
(This story appears in the Mar-Apr 2016 issue of ForbesLife India. To visit our Archives, click here.)