World building is their forte | Eeshaan Kashyap to Aaquib Wani, the most wanted creatives

The lines are blurring when it comes to brand events, fashion shows, gala dinners, and even exhibitions. Sophisticated décor and great food no longer make the cut; instead, styling and choreography are taking centrestage. A mixed tribe of design people — from varied backgrounds such as art, music, culinary, fashion, and retail — are helping raise the bar, crafting stunning spaces and curating unforgettable experiences that are not necessarily weddings. Think fashion runways with art interventions, or art parties with puns, table jewellery and 12-foot bananas. Meet the mavericks who are on speed dials across the country.

Eeshaan Kashyap: Master of the tablescape

Last month, for art collector Tarana Sawhney’s India Art Fair party, Eeshaan Kashyap served an innovative ‘pun-tea’ — kicking things off with a 12-foot banana on the roof of the Sawhneys’ Lutyens bungalow. “I was inspired by the conceptual art of Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), the infamous banana taped to the wall, as well as Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), the porcelain urinals, which we used to serve a green pea salad,” says Kashyap with a laugh, recalling how he injected the humour of the pea/pee pun into conversations. “We plastered the walls with fake currency to denote the idea of ‘more is more’, and the ability to have bad taste celebrated as good taste. We also placed pop artworks made of fibreglass next to Tarana’s own Gandhara and Deccan sculptures, to create a contrast between the new and the old, between art and not-art.”

A day earlier, for the gala dinner for Asia Art Society’s Game Changer Awards, he meditated on the idea of sharing — portraying the inclusivity in art through the sharing of flavour, history, literature, and poetry. “It gave me the freedom to bring dishes from Nepal and Sri Lanka into the menu. Even the décor took its cue from three ideas, ‘words, roots, and threads’, which formed a narrative of sharing.” And just last week, he created a tablescape for Asian Paints at India Design ID where he played with salt. “I called it Table Play, creating lab-grown salt crystal candlesticks, which took around four months of experiments to realise.”

A chef by training but a tastemaker above all else, Kashyap’s work defies classifications — is he a designer, an artist, a forecaster, a stylist, a chef, or something else entirely? He combines food with design, art, and performance to narrate stories.

Table jewellery and edible wallpaper

It is his prolific approach that allows him to ask interesting questions. For example: if a table has legs and is covered with cloth, why can’t it be accessorised with jewellery? Why can’t it — like a person — have a personality? Kashyap, 38, calls it tablescaping; bringing in disparate elements that defy classical strictures to create visual and sensory narratives.

“Gone are the days of calla lilies being flown in, or opulent chandeliers, or pretty things that say nothing,” he says. Gatherings have become more intimate (though not necessarily in numbers), and the table has emerged as a medium to display creative ideas. He should know, having worked for the Ambani wedding’s Jamnagar spell, and with brands such as Good Earth, Nicobar, Pottery Barn, and The House of Things in the past year alone.

2025 is also looking exciting for Kashyap in terms of playing around with objects that don’t necessarily belong on a table, especially concepts like ‘table jewellery’. Unlike tableware, it is designed to be more opulent, desirable, and whimsical. “Like a butter knife made with rock crystal; you don’t really need it, it’s very difficult to create, but to have it placed on the table is definitely a statement.” Handling requests for solid jade thalis for a client, to creating a tablescape for Jaipur Rugs strewn with actual emeralds and rubies, only strengthens his idea of its future in entertaining.

And his experiments don’t stop at jewels. There’s edible wallpaper you can lick right off the walls, for one. “We did this for the Asian Paints Experience Centre in Chennai, working with the design team to create these cool, crazy wallpapers that you can lick and taste, and even rip off and eat.” For a private client, he recently created an installation inspired by the works of American artist Alexander Calder, where his signature kinetic sculpture was reimagined with pieces of edible khakhra [thin wheat crackers] hanging as counterbalances in an edible, artistic chandelier.

Unfettering imaginations

Kashyap takes anywhere from five days to six months to turn ideas into reality, with his compact five-member team. “For a wedding in Bali last June, I created a life-size marble fountain that dispensed a delicious elderflower-and-gin cocktail. This took about three months to make, as we had to ensure that it had airtight, food-grade copper pipe,” he says. “We’ve also done cupboards that guests opened to find chilled cocktails inside, negating the need for a single bar. The ideas are endless, and can become fascinating when done well.”

Next week, his ideas will take centrestage in an exhibition titled ‘PLAY’ at The Stands in Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium. Showcasing tableware, decor items, and objets d’art, he hopes to create “tonal, tactile, and terrific experiences for visitors”, and unfetter imaginations when it comes to creating experiences that spark conversations.

Varun Rana is a fashion commentator, creative director, and brand consultant based in New Delhi.

Aaquib Wani: from Lollapalooza to Ambani weddings

Preparations are on in full swing at Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Racecourse for next weekend’s musical extravaganza, Lollapalooza India. Expect installations of the city’s iconic Kaali Peeli taxi, a kinetic garden, interactive photo-ops plus crowd favourites like inflatables, including one of the festival mascot, Shaman. “Every element is designed to spark excitement and capture that unmistakable ‘Lolla magic’,” says Creative Director Aaquib Wani about the India edition of the largest music festival in the world.

“The idea is to blend Lollapalooza’s global identity with a local flavour,” says Wani, the brain behind Lollapalooza India’s spatial design since its inception in 2023. For the inaugural edition, Wani and his team at Aaquib Wani Design created black and yellow cabs, a cat playing a guitar, UFOs and a host of other kooky, surreal yet cartoony motifs that won praise from all quarters. “It was obviously inspired by the brand’s signature colours, iconography, and so on, but we ended up creating our own version of the American music festival.”

Back in December, Wani also worked on a 200-ft. ocean-inspired immersive stage design called ‘The Underwater Symphony’ for Sunburn Goa, another hot-ticket music festival. The self-learnt design maverick is today the go-to person sought after by brands when it comes to spatial design — the art and science of creating functional and aesthetic spaces.

Last year, he designed Team India jerseys for the Paris Olympics and the T20 Men’s Cricket World Cup, conceptualised the launch of MG Motors’ Comet EV, styled musician Prateek Kuhad’s Silhouettes tour, and designed a festive edition Apple Beats Solo Buds. In the past, Wani has also been a part of Ambani siblings Isha and Akash’s weddings in Mumbai.

Wani, 33, hails from a business family dealing with Kashmiri handicrafts, and has a flair about him, with his long hair and unconventional sartorial choices. But he is old-school when it comes to the research and inspiration behind each of his designs. He likes to explore the cities that host the events and takes cues from its various elements — be it the architecture or the flora and fauna. “It’s always important to have a narrative. The idea is to celebrate the city and not just throw in some pretty graphics, because I feel it’s very important to have a connect,” says Wani.

It began with a poster

Wani started out in a metal band when he was 17, making concert posters on MS Paint before teaching himself to use Adobe Photoshop. “I didn’t know anything about royalty-free images or licensing. I was just putting together visuals I liked so that I could promote our band,” he recalls. After failing high school and dropping out, he decided to follow his passion for music full-time. Soon, he was getting asked by bands and festival organisers to design their posters. From 2010 to 2014, Wani worked at cult magazine Rock Street Journal, a period he describes as “formative” because of the exposure to India’s growing music ecosystem. “I come from that time when all of this [the music festival industry] was still fresh and being experimental. I got to understand it all from the audience’s point of view,” he says.

In 2014, he moved out of Rock Street Journal to work with designer Sumant Jayakrishnan at the latter’s Delhi studio. It was there, Wani says, that he moved from 2D to 3D work and began to understand the concept of spatial design. Going beyond merely creating a poster, he got involved in stage design, backdrops, décor and installations. Today, he works with a team of 12 on projects that take anywhere from 4 to 12 weeks, sometimes longer, from conception to sourcing to execution. Designing products like the Beats Solo Buds, for instance, takes him two to eight weeks. At Lollapalooza India this year, Wani is also inviting college-level designers to create spaces at the festival, an attempt to give back to society perhaps.

From flex banners to pitch decks

Talking about what it takes to design music festivals then and now, Wani says, “Social media wasn’t big back then. It was more to do with newspaper and magazine ads, and flex banners. We didn’t have any of the installations we have today. There’s been a big shift.” Where there was just one stage and a bar at music events, there are now multiple stages, brand installations, photo booths and more. “It’s all about instant gratification. Every touch point matters, from the gate design to the stage,” he says. On the digital front, there are templates to create for artist announcements, videos and more.

But, Wani says, his “ADHD mind” loves working on as much as possible and thrives on challenges that come with exploring varied interest areas. “We’re working on 20-odd projects right now. I can’t be doing the same thing over and over again,” says the design maven, who is busy with a new interior decoration project.

Anurag Tagat is a Bengaluru-based independent music journalist.

Doyel Joshi and Neil Ghose Balser: Constantly pushing boundaries

At the India Art Fair last month, a large 12×12 foot red ice installation was a popular stop. Made with over 120 slabs, each icy block weighing around 200 kg, the massive sculpture was also one of the only things that visitors couldn’t buy at the commercial art event.

“It was funny as people would look at it from afar and be like ‘that’s really beautiful’, and ask if they could buy it. So, it kind of became a commentary on the setting that we were in,” Doyel Joshi, 33, says with a laugh. “And yet, it was a very visceral sculpture as many people were emotionally affected by it. They would touch it and get their hands red by doing so, collect the dripping water or even have their children play in it.”

The sculpture has its origin story in Mumbai, at IF.BE, the cultural centre housed in one of South Asia’s oldest ice factories. Joshi and her husband Neil Ghose Balser’s creative studio, HowAreYouFeeling.Studio, was commissioned to create an installation for an event for Dewar Whisky. “We walked around to see how the context could inform our perception. It still has the machinery used to make ice, such as these small canals for the water to come in. Then, when we ducked behind it, we discovered that the original owners of the factory have a small window there, where they still produce and sell ice,” says Joshi.

As the duo spoke to them, something sparked. “We thought of the idea of ‘rented ownership’; they would collaborate with us and bring the expertise and practical know-how but also bear the history,” she shares, adding that the erstwhile owners made the ice blocks and stacked them. Joshi and Balser’s intervention: the colour red — an emotive hue that’s resonated with them since their wedding.

Weddings and inflatable red balls

It wouldn’t be amiss to say that their palace wedding in Rajasthan was pivotal — not only in kickstarting their lives together, but also that of their studio. “We’d been living in New York, and [in November 2022] we’d moved to India where we got married. After a nine-page article came out in Vogue India, the number of brands that reached out to us and the amount of people that started recognising us and our work was quite incredible,” says Balser, explaining how the wedding was their first canvas, where they created different installations.

For example, a 10-foot inflatable red ball was conceived while exploring the nuances of what a wedding is and its more archetypical and archaic ideas. For instance, how the bride is given away to the groom. “So, we decided to put this red ball in the groom’s balcony, almost like a location pin, but also an emotive form — to point out that we were doing all this ‘drama’, as it were, for the bride to end up there,” says Joshi.

Two months later, when fashion brand Lovebirds, gave them their first commission, they expanded the idea of the ball. “The bride had reached the destination, and in a typical love story, it’s a happy ending. But is it really? The story doesn’t end there,” Joshi explains. For the show, they created a large runway with the ball in between. It was called ‘Space in Between’, and during the show Neil and I got up and pushed the ball out of the runway, rolled it along the audience and out of the space. What was left was almost like a cavity, conceptually exploring what happens after.” Sonically, they set it to music and dialogue — a mundane exchange between partners about soup for dinner and day-to-day life.

Through all their work, Joshi and Balser’s goal is to have people interact with their ideas on a very basic human level, and to take something away from it.

Yearning for diverse experiences

Today, the two-year-old interdisciplinary practice creates art installations, sound design and creative concepts with brands, fashion labels, and events for clients, including Hermes, Gucci, Mercedes, and most recently British-American sitar player Anoushka Shankar.

“We’ve been commissioned by Anoushka Shankar and the Brighton Festival in the U.K. to do the principal installation and the brochure cover. With her album and idea of a ‘New Dawn’ as the departure point, we worked with a concept that will be shown throughout May in a travelling installation, and an exhibition at the end of the festival,” says Balser.

For the two, now “feels like the moment to be in India”. “You can create; there are collaborators who are willing to push the boundaries. It’s not easy to explain what we do, but I think [the fact] that such a multidisciplinary, multi hyphenated approach works is a testament to really how open everyone is,” says Joshi, adding, “I also think there’s money in India.”

The last three days, they’ve been in Delhi, working on a 4,000 square foot architectural project. “We are looking at the intersection between architecture and sculpture. While on the one hand, it’s a store for selling clothes, on the other, it’s conceptually an installation, too.” What they haven’t designed so far are weddings. At least, not yet.

Isla Maria Van Damme: Multitasker with a dash of masala

Better known as Loulou, Isla Maria Van Damme is a stylist, hotelier, model and passionate gardener. She turns 80 this May and is an inspiration to the Indian design community that knows her. An integral part of the styling at the Raw Mango stores in Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad, she has worked on several design projects, including jewellery designer Hanut Singh’s pop-ups. Born to Belgian parents in Kodaikanal, Loulou lived and worked in Europe for decades before returning to India “to retire” in 2000. “Well it hasn’t worked that way,” she laughs, over a morning phone call. “My friends say you are working too hard but I am meeting extraordinary people all the time. I say yes to crazy things sometimes but it’s such fun.” Recently, she was part of artist and filmmaker Sarah Singh’s “moving tableau”, an art salon featuring sopranos and over 40 artists, at Gwalior Fort. It was a performance that blended heritage with contemporary relevance and Loulou joined in as “a prop, dressed like a bird of paradise”. For Singh’s pop-up at Soho House, she showcased his spectacular jewellery against “strange and quirky, broken antiques, be it vases, plates or statues”. Known for her inimitable personal style, she has been part of campaigns for fashion label Injiri and jewellery brand Outhouse.

This year, she is busy styling houses in Delhi and Goa, another in Jaipur for Injiri’s Chinar Farooqui, as well as designer Vikram Goyal’s atelier. There are also plans to design a salon of sorts at the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai. “I am a masala. I cannot do one style, whether it is homes or other projects or when dressing up. I like creating a look by mixing different things, and it’s with items of character that you get style,” she explains. Very organised, Loulou suggests that her mindful lifestyle helps her stay positive and sharp. At home in the foothills of the Western Ghats, her office is her dining table in her verandah, overlooking the Palani Hills. Despite the view, it appears she can work on multiple projects and yet sign up for more. “India has embraced me, I don’t know why. I feel loved,” she concludes.

Tahir Sultan: An eye for the unusual

The half-Kuwaiti, half-Indian aesthete is known for many things: his house parties, love of Champagne and the gym, his design store Makaan, and his eye for the unusual. So, when jeweller Sunita Shekhawat asked Tahir Sultan to do the visual merchandising for the store at the new Museum of Meenakari Heritage last year, he tried to break the mould of how fine jewellery can be presented. His displays saw glorious strands of emeralds juxtaposed with green metal food storage boxes, aluminium pails with meenakari, and colourful firecracker dabbas with lustrous pearls. “It wasn’t anything run of the mill,” he says.

I caught him shortly after the Jaipur-based designer wrapped up a hectic weekend at India Design ID, where he catered the food for the event’s honorees — a “high-end grazing table” with Middle Eastern and Arabian food. As we chat, he shares details of some of his other projects, including art curator Noelle Kadar’s office at the newly opened Jaipur Centre for Art, in the City Palace. “I used the araish [lime plaster] technique and created a backgammon inspired office.”

The versatile designer — who once worked under fashion designers Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, and set up his own clothing label — has carved a niche for himself today with work that stretches across interiors, product design, food, and art installations. “A lot of clients that approach me have already bought into my ethos. So, I’m given a lot of leeway to do what I want to do,” says Sultan, who briefly studied architecture before pursuing arts at London’s Central Saint Martin’s. Given his skill to bring together objects as varied as Naga tables with Rajasthan’s love of colour, it’s no surprise that at Makaan, and in his other projects — his ongoing collaboration with Jaipur and Kuwait-based lifestyle brand Ecru — there are “no design limitations”.

Aatish Nath is based in Mumbai.

Nayantara Kotian: Interactive staging, replete with mise en scène

The Mumbai collective, Crow began as an immersive theatre company 10 years ago and has been creating unusual experiences that involve the performing arts, be it at India Art Fair in the capital recently or for Almond House in Hyderabad. Co-founder Nayantara Kotian, who signs off as Boss Lady in her emails, explains that the Art Fair project, The Dichotomy of Delhi, “was an installation that revelled in the process of creation”. The inner sanctum of the installation welcomed visitors to paint alongside artists, while the finished canvases were mounted on the outer walls of the installation in choreographed performances every day. The installation was by Studio Lotus, with visual art by XXL Collective, and experience and performance design by Crow.

“We create an entire world for audiences to walk into and they have agency inside that world,” says Kotian. “In the past, we have created large-scale shows in Delhi, where we took over entire abandoned buildings and redesigned them to these worlds that also involved storytelling.” For HSBC, the team created a six-voice symphony called The Song of the Cosmos at NMACC in Mumbai, where each voice played elements, from dark energy to the sun and the ocean. Kotian, a film graduate of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, who pursued performance design at Central Saint Martins, London, also teaches at design schools across India.

With inputs from Rosella Stephen and Surya Praphulla Kumar