Before there was cotton, there was paper - cold-press sheets spread across the studio floor, watercolours drying slowly in afternoon light, branches and flowers brought in from outside the window. Every work begins there.

Every Khara Kapas edition starts as an original watercolour, signed and dated before it ever reaches cotton. The painting becomes the source for the print room exactly as it exists on paper - not redrawn, not cleaned up, not vectorised. The bleed of pigment, the softness of the wash, the slight buckle of paper all remain visible in the final impression.

“I run an art practice. Some of it is paper. Some of it is cotton.

I paint only what is in front of me: a branch cut that morning, a flower from outside the studio. Never from photographs, often from memory. Each painting takes weeks, shaped as much by waiting as by painting itself - waiting for washes to dry, for the light to soften, for the hand to return to it naturally. I discard more works than I keep. The ones that stay are signed, dated, and only then translated onto cotton."

- Shilpi Yadav, Founder & Creative Director is an army child, she grew up across India - from Punjab to the Northeast - shaping her deep-rooted appreciation for culture, tradition, and storytelling. She holds a BFA in Applied Arts from the College of Art, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, a Master’s in Apparel Design from NID Ahmedabad, and a Diploma in Merchandise Marketing from FIDM, Los Angeles.

At the heart of Khara Kapas is Shilpi’s belief in conscious fashion - where beauty meets pupose, and tradition meets modernity.