Raw Mango's modernist Hyderabad store is a product of working purely with intuition

How does one measure the right amount of playfulness when it comes to retail design for a fashion brand? Beyond a place to buy things off the shelf, can it be a cabinet of curiosities nurturing fascinating stories? Indian fashion brand Raw Mango’s stores in the country are driving the conversation around prioritising the experience over objects. With stores in New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, and the latest being in Hyderabad, the brand helmed by Indian fashion designer Sanjay Garg continues to question the dominant narrative around the way these spaces are designed and accessed globally. To reflect the ethos of a brand that draws from the rich cultural heritage of India, a name synonymous to luxurious handloom silk sarees in acidic colours and tasteful embroidery, much as its textiles convey extravagance in less being more, the stores too speak of that curated restraint. STIR connected with the brand’s creative team to peek into the ideology that drives the conception of these spaces in addition to peeking into their newest Hyderabad outpost. The latter is housed in a 1980s modernist home spread on a 12,500 sq ft area in the city’s Banjara Hills neighbourhood.

Following are edited excerpts from STIR's conversation with Sanjay Garg, and Raw Mango’s visual creative director, Adityan Melekalam. The interview is also interspersed with inputs from Studio suryan//dang, a Gurgaon-Delhi based collaborative practice for the visual dialogue of built spaces. Helmed by partners Lokesh Dang and Saurabh Suryan, the studio did the photo documentation of the brand’s Hyderabad and Chennai store.

Zohra Khan: Where did the name 'Raw Mango' come from?

Sanjay Garg: Like the name suggests, 'Raw Mango' speaks to the unripe and imperfect idea of beauty and similarly this embodies my vision and journey in India and also my hometown, Rajasthan.

Zohra: What is at the heart of Raw Mango for you? How would you describe your journey, and the evolution of the brand’s journey too?

Adityan Melekalam: I have been associated with Raw Mango for a while now. Both in an individual capacity and through Squadron 14, a rather recent development. Right after the inception of the brand, I worked on creating the brand identity and thereafter, helped evolve it into something more than just its visual appearance. It has been a highly collaborative journey, and we never really took a conventional branding/marketing approach. It was more about understanding why some things are fascinating for us individually and as a brand.

The associations have been there on and off in different capacities, on different projects. When Sanjay started working on retail spaces, we spoke about how it should extend the brand experience. Though I had no working experience in designing spaces, it felt quite natural because we had a clear idea of what the brand would not do; while what it would do is something that kept on evolving.

Coming to your question about what is at the heart of Raw Mango, I think it's this openness to evolve—it's a brand that has kept moving. While some thinking remains rooted where it was, I think Raw Mango as a brand has become more open. As an idea, it's always in flux. When it started, it explored everything that it was fascinated by in a way that was honest and innocent, almost not knowing where that would be relevant and what the context is. As a brand, it is more certain of things now but the process of becoming what it is now is also rooted in continuously decontextualising its fascinations.

Zohra: Speaking of the Hyderabad store, observing the spaces inside and the various details, one finds a sense of containment. Every element seems to have a visual boundary to it. What are your thoughts on this?

Adityan: If you are talking about the elements in the space, I think they seem to be framed or staged in a certain way. I think each of these conveys an idea, and one way of looking at Raw Mango's spaces is to view them as putting different ideas together. Inside these spaces, we don't see the products upfront mostly. They are always behind a screen or perhaps inside a cupboard. This helps the visitors to get acquainted with these ideas first before they consider the products.

Zohra: You mentioned words like framing and staging which when read in the context of the Raw Mango stores conjure an impression of each space being a museum. Would you agree?

Adityan: I think museums and museology come with their baggage, and that's not something that we are actively trying to recreate. We do think of our spaces as places to convey ideas. So maybe that's a parallel that you can draw. Trying to make sense of the site—its location as well as the socio-cultural context and micro-histories—is perhaps the first thing that happens after we decide on it.

The buildings of Raw Mango stores have different histories and styles, many of which have altered over time. We build off of what is already there and then try to strip things down to reveal more of the original structure. In some cases, we create a resolved form by following a thought that could have been central among the multiple influences and contexts of the building—creating an experience that's probably more natural to that space. This stripping down and de/re-contextualising is common to most of the Raw Mango stores and might be the reason for the sense of familiarity when you walk into one.

One might ask, 'What is the purpose of a modernist building in Hyderabad that looks like it has been transplanted from Europe?' Raw Mango embraces these idiosyncrasies. – Adityan Melekalam

Zohra: A strong emphasis is given on the architecture of the retail spaces. A focus on reflecting the spirit of the place is recurrent. Could you describe the building where the Hyderabad store is located, as well as its neighbourhood?

Adityan: It's in one of the central areas of the city. Very active and busy which is what I think makes the site all the more interesting because you enter this place with a lot of trees and a building with clean lines and not too much to absorb. It's built thoughtfully giving a lot of space for things around it to seemingly merge into it. The architecture subscribes to modernism, both as a style and an approach to building. It used to be a family home up till the late eighties. We spoke to the people who used to live there to get an idea of the way they experienced the environment. We made sure that the central flow of the space is very much restored to the original since the building was repurposed as offices with a lot of modifications, in the interim.

Zohra: Was the visitors experience envisioned a certain way when the space was conceptualised?

Adityan: We wanted it to feel like a home and that was quite a central thought. Besides that, like in other stores too, we wanted it to offer more insights into Raw Mango. There is a sense amongst its audience of what Raw Mango is as a brand or what its personality is—a brand which is very interested in arts of any kind or culture; constantly enquiring and questioning the ways we understand the geographical or historical associations of everything. One might ask, 'What is the purpose of a building in Hyderabad that looks like it has been transplanted from Europe?’ Raw Mango embraces these idiosyncrasies.

At the same time, we also wanted it not to be distracting beyond a point. We followed a common line of thought for a lot of elements in the store. For example, the hooks for hanging clothes on the walls were made from scratch by our metalsmith on the spot.

Zohra: ART. It can’t be ignored at any Raw Mango store. One feels a surreal pull—sculptures and artefacts seem to be driving the conversation. How are these placed? What was the idea?

Adityan: There is a certain idea of communication, not just through space and furniture but through objects. Sanjay is a collector. We go about curating by looking at some larger impulses. For example, in Hyderabad, we wanted the objects to convey a sense of play and self-awareness. In this sense, the curation is not purely visual or principled. We also dissect this idea or impulse to see just how much degree of playfulness is appropriate for a store like this so as to not overwhelm the visitor. For instance, there was a small bust of a kid with a short, tapering base. We got a carpenter to extend that base to five feet in height. It just followed the lines along the corners to become a disproportionately long base with a tiny bust on top. Similarly, we suspended a broken wooden horse from the ceiling of the portico to appear like a merry-go-round ride. It's a small subversion that plays with your idea of a familiar object.

Given how prominent an element they are in Raw Mango's spaces, there is always a dialogue happening between these objects. We repeat a lot of ideas and hence, thought of replicating the objects that are already in other Raw Mango spaces. During this process, we were quite drawn by the peripheral stuff, like the casts and moulds and started looking at them as central objects in some of the spaces.

Sanjay: Everything from textiles, art, dance, food are all integral parts of the social fabric in India, and the idea is to incorporate local elements that gain meaning through history, culture and context in our design vocabulary across all mediums. In India, art, design or fashion were never seen as separate entities—you can’t see them in a compartmentalised silo. Kala, is a by-product of all forms of artistic creation and is intertwined with history and culture. The division between them is a western construct. The lines were blurred before, and I believe should continue to be. Like most Raw Mango stores, the Hyderabad boutique is also designed and built to be a gallery to showcase Kala, be it our collections and fascinations like objects, antiques or curiosities that I have collected over the years.

There are many layers and a lot of thinking and distilling that go in and navigating that process is a challenge because you don't really see things falling into place till the last point quite often. – Adityan Melekalam

Zohra: What constitutes the material palette for the Hyderabad store? 

Adityan: The terrazzo flooring is reclaimed. It was already there but in a very bad state. There was a lot of wood which was used in that space, some were added to make it look continuous with what was already there. Though we do have a bunch of materials that we repeat, we always start with what's already on site to understand what more can be added in a way that looks natural or to separate things from the main structure, as the case may be.

We end up using a lot of mild steel elements. It's quite liberating in the sense that it ages well and it looks better with imperfections or fabrication marks. What Raw Mango has explored through Sanjay is to design things keeping in mind the limitations of the tools and collaborators, such as handmade stuff. This way, there is always room for things to go wrong.

Zohra: What has been the most significant challenge through the journey of the store?

Adityan: The main challenge perhaps is to arrive at a point where it all looks resolved as an idea. There are many layers and a lot of thinking and distilling that go in and navigating that process is a challenge because you don't really see things falling into place till the last point quite often.

Zohra: Was there a direction for Suryan//Dang involved with Raw Mango Hyderabad? 

Studio suryan//dang: For Raw Mango Hyderabad, we had multiple conversations about the environment and its intention but there was no direct brief to be followed. The sense of capturing and archiving the space was very intuitive and fresh. The idea of working with creative freedom and trust is something we see in Raw Mango’s values throughout. 

Zohra: Having documented two stores of the brand, would you say there's been an evolution in the way you capture certain elements? 

Studio suryan//dang: The journey of archiving Raw Mango’s spatial narrative has been very exciting for us. The spaces are very design forward and choose with negative spaces and pauses very wisely. The clever combination of art selection, curation, and integration of landscape are some of the things we have personally enjoyed. The intention of design and brand value comes across very finely where there is a healthy mix of colours, patterns, artefacts and merchandise. 

From an architecture perspective, the choice of space is something that surprises us with every store. There is a very delicate mix of postmodern design and contemporary sense of intervention. The soul of the shell is intact and lives through and new layers are added to compliment it, which makes every store a unique experience. 

Zohra: Is there something that is lacking in the design of fashion retail globally, a gap particularly that Raw Mango is trying to fill?

Adityan: More than just in fashion retail, I do believe Raw Mango and Sanjay are influencing a mindset of how we approach design. We keep talking about the idea of sophistication and luxury, and in the context of India, there still appears a need for a certain kind of extravagance or spectacle to imagine these experiences. Raw Mango has managed to subvert this because it truly sees that the culture of India is diverse. Instead of dwelling in simple dualities – old and new, traditional and modern, India and international—it's always questioning the possibilities of in-between which are much more complex and rich.

Zohra: What's NEXT for you?

Sanjay: With six studios across New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and now Hyderabad, our focus will be to grow the brand online and key international markets.