Inside the timeless, tailored world of Raghavendra Rathore

This dapper, ever-youthful member of the royal family of Jodhpur is always one step ahead of the design game. Trained in fashion at Parsons School of Design in New York, Raghavendra Rathore is known equally for his sharply tailored bandhgala—worn by the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan and Middle-Eastern royals—as he is for creating India’s only fully bespoke menswear brand to partner with Italian luxury major Ermenegildo Zegna and Reliance Brands. Fresh from a Rajput wedding in Rajasthan (all “turbans and whiskers,” he laughs), the designer says his 30-year-old label is all about slow fashion and classics. “We stay away from hotspots and parties at fashion weeks,” says Raghu, as he is known to his friends. “We’re happy to have grown in market share, but we limit ourselves to the classics, besides the festive stuff.”

Raghavendra trained under the watchful eye of the legendary Oscar de La Renta in New York, before returning to his hometown and kicking off his own fashion dream with a show in 1994. The world took notice after Anant Ambani, son of Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, wore a certain black bandhgala by brand Raghavendra Rathore for his wedding reception in 2024. “There was a demand shift post-Mumbai,” he adds, “and we are now set up for the grooms of the world, wearing what earlier men would look down upon.” 

As custom as can be 

If your mind is set on a rich Raghavendra Rathore brocade achkan, you can choose from among the existing swatches at their boutiques, or you can take a photo of a brocade of your choice (say, your grandfather’s wedding achkan), and Raghu will work with his weavers in Varanasi (depending on your budget) and infuse it with silver thread or make it in silk. Customised brocade can take from 3 to 6 months as it’s heavily dependent on the whims of the weaver. 
As a sustainable brand, Raghavendra Rathore only fashions a garment after an order comes in. “We don’t flood stores,” he says. “Whatever you see [in our five outlets] is custom-made or lying there for someone. We don’t do retail and only have a few samples. You can’t be more sustainable than that.” 

Raghu likes to work directly with the personality he’s creating for. Like the famously fitted white kurta and Punjabi lungi that singer-actor Diljit Dosanjh wore last year on the Late Night Show with Jimmy Fallon. 

“Diljit’s sensibilities are aligned with how I see the world: he’s a gentle person and is articulate towards heritage. The kurta, though not complicated technically, needed the right colour combinations, proportions and embroidery (made by an NGO in Barmer, Rajasthan), all in sync. The result was a native Punjab, with a dash of Rajasthan,” the designer explains.

Instead of shooting on models, the brand works on personalities and gives them a new look, moving them away from their comfort zone to their own positioning. Think Saif Ali Khan or Shahid Kapoor’s embellished chocolate kurta, or the plum kurta on young Yuvraj Vrishankaditya Parmar of Santrampur more recently. “These clothes are customised based on the conversations they have with the design team [who travel to you anywhere in the world, from the US to Turkey]. This is how innovation seeps into our brand,” says Raghu. “It’s not about trends; it’s when you are customising clothes for social media or individuals. You learn so much from them as they are moving in the right wavelength.” 

From customers’ wishlists to emerging trends, anything from embellishments to the most baroque-inspired jackets is possible in Raghu’s atelier, headquartered in Jodhpur with factories in Gurugram. “Everything is made there because you are making highly sustainable, one on one products,” he adds. 

For the brand, creativity evolves within these bespoke “capsules” and not all of them get photographed. “We did a Mozez-inspired look, and it became so popular with the Europeans. I was surprised,” says Raghu of a small wardrobe collection filmmaker Mozez Singh had requested. And to that, he adds definition, the Italian style of the cut and the sophistication of Zegna mill fabrics—as well as fabrics made in Indian mills exclusively for export. 

“We changed the armhole on the bandhgala,” he says. “It used to be cut 22 to 24 inches. So the moment we cut it like the Europeans, it started to look slender. I remember Rohit Bal saying we hadn’t seen such cuts in India until my show in Jodhpur. We had seen drapes with the shoulder used as an anchor for a fluid silhouette like a salwar or a kurta, which cemented the arrival of the tailored look.”

From Jodhpur to the world 

The label’s raison d’être or heritage revival is the quality of its stitching “because ours is a tailored look, and we don’t do much embroidery.” Of course, there’s a small section devoted to embroidery, as per the groom’s liking, but for Raghu, the real revival is the benchmark set by his patterncutters and masterjis—and if he sees their age bracket drop. “After the pandemic, I saw that for the first time, which meant that their children were coming in because their salaries are good, and they want to continue cutting patterns my grandfathers did.” 

It was Raghu’s great-grandfather, Maharaja Sardar Singh of Jodhpur-Marwar, who invented the Jodhpuri safa (turban) as we know it today, with the flowing tail, from the traditional Jodhpur pagh. “His fit was impeccable,” says Raghu. “He had a fine understanding of brocades, seen from the old photographs, as well as the more Islamic angarkha and kurta. He introduced the bandhgala as we know it, inspired by the British officers’ jackets. Essentially, it was a shortened version of the sherwani, which had been the royal attire of the court. And that other Raghavendra Rathore signature, the breeches or riding pants, were actually invented in Jodhpur and are also known as jodhpurs.” 

The ultimate homage to crafts is the Art-Deco Umaid Bhawan Palace, built by Maharaja Umaid Singh of JodhpurMarwar during the famine, employing millions. “Even today, I tell my design team that if they need inspiration, just take a flight to Jodhpur!” says Raghu.

Using logic in fashion 

Raghavendra has made full use of his early technical education in Robotics and Electronics from Hampshire College, Amherst, in his creative field. “We were predicting fashion market trends through calculative algorithms,” he says. “It was going to be a bloodbath in womenswear. So after getting into fashion, we removed womenswear and all the distractions and focused on the go-to piece, the bandhgala.” 

While the brand still makes a few bespoke women’s pieces on demand for clients like businesswoman Priya Paul, it doesn’t go the usual route of collections with sizes or colourways. There’s no dead stock to worry about either, so his is a light business model. 

“One creates what’s going to generate revenue and is adaptable to the technology of the year,” he says, as one of the few brands to actively use AI in the design process. “These trained bots are aesthetically more sound than some of our top designers. So they can create pocket scarves and colour combinations that would otherwise take so much time.” 
Raghavendra Rathore is also amid their first photoshoots with AI without a human model. “We will be the first bespoke company going against the anthem of bespoke by bringing in so much AI,” he says. “But it has to be done tactfully and seamlessly. It’s a fun place to be. It’s been a fantastic journey from my highly technical education 35 years ago to be in this very soft version of that today. The best part is that you don’t have to make electronic circuits to make this response of AI; you just go to a computer and type what you want.” 

Creating for the groom of today

Most of Raghavendra Rathore’s clients are driven by their mothers, the designer observes, or by the young groom himself. “It’s not the stylists and wedding planners who helm this,” he adds. “My clients have studied or lived overseas. Their thinking is quite clear—they are not looking at embroideries as a takeaway, but more at classic silhouettes and sophisticated fabrics, the composition of shoes and breeches, and how everything fits together.” 

As a niche brand, it’s not every day that people will want to wear Jodhpuri breeches, so the customer is well-defined. “They are mostly owners of companies,” says Raghu. “They are not people who work for other people. If they ask for an embroidery, their request will not be for something that you can easily embroider on a cushion.” 
But with so much going on in an Indian wedding—flowers, the bride’s lehenga and other bells and whistles—a groom needs to stand apart. “I always say that the photograph that graces your drawing room will be the final picture you will remember from your event!” says Raghu. “And this whole idea of matching the groom’s clothes with the bride’s is ridiculous. Men should completely stand apart in their overall look.” 

Besides groomswear and classic menswear, Raghavendra Rathore also specialises in custom-made buttons, lockets, bracelets and kadas—sometimes with special messages and insignia carved into them—as well as home and car interiors. “This is all based on the conversations we have with clients when they are booking orders,” he explains. 

He recently made a pair of breeches for a member of an Arab royal family, who swears by the brand’s jodhpurs. “The thing is, you can only do so much to upgrade it,” says Raghu. “They are normally in stiff cotton, or maybe in wool for the winter. But it needs to have the right elements. A lot of stuff out there is called Jodhpuri breeches, but you can tell an original from its fit from 20 metres away!”

This article first appeared in Brides Today, January-March 2025 print edition.

Images: Raghavendra Rathore

Also read: Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna on Indian menswear and contemporary bridal fashion

Also read: Best groom accessories to elevate your wedding-day look