For four decades, Indian textile house Chanakya International has produced some of the world’s most intricate embroidery for houses including Dior, Prada, and Fendi. Its most visible moment came in 2023, when Chanakya’s artisans brought their craft to Dior’s pre-fall show at Mumbai’s Gateway of India. Now, the Mumbai atelier is attempting something far rarer: transforming from one of fashion’s most influential makers into a global brand in its own right.
Enter Chorus, founded by Karishma Swali, creative director and managing director of Chanakya International, alongside her daughter, Avantika, in late 2025. “Avantika and I founded Chorus as an interdisciplinary practice grounded in the textile intelligence of the Indian subcontinent, creating womenswear, objects and works of art that imagine textiles as architecture,” Swali tells Vogue Business. The brand’s first resort collection lands exclusively on Moda Operand as a wholesaler this week, but will also be available on the brand’s own website.
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A young label, a deep history
The seven-month-old label, which already has two stores across Mumbai and Delhi and retails at Galeries Lafayette Mumbai, has actually been years in the making. Besides being rooted in Chanakya’s 40-year history of preserving and perpetuating craft traditions (the company has crafted around 10,000 historical pieces across the world, alongside more than 100,000 documented craft explorations), the mother-daughter duo previously launched a fashion label, Moonray, during Covid, “as a space of joy, where craft, consciousness, and beauty met with ease. In a few years, it gathered a thoughtful community, one that cared about the ethics of making and about purposeful design.”
With stores in Mumbai and Delhi, Moonray also retailed on India-based e-tail platforms such as Tata Cliq Luxury. It became a go-to for the urban creative community, and in 2023, the label participated in the “Sutr Santati: Then. Now. Next” exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Mumbai, with a textile-based art installation called Infinity Fields.
Moonray shuttered in 2025 to make way for Chorus, though Swali frames it as “an evolution”, not a closure. “As Moonray’s roots deepened, so did its voice. Chorus is that next chapter,” she says. While Moonray was concentrated on the local Indian market, Chorus aims to give the world an Indian label that can sit seamlessly next to international contemporary brands without seeming derivative.
“The Chorus woman is curious, always seeking, and discerning,” Swali says. “She moves comfortably between cultures, [and] treats personal style as a form of self-expression.” The brand comprises five interconnected channels: Chorus ready-to-wear, Chorus Edition (its made-to-measure line), Chorus Café, Chorus Wellness, and Chorus Concept. This comes to life at its three-level store in a heritage building in Mumbai.
