Akhil Nagpal
2025
AKHL was founded by Akhil Nagpal in early 2020. Nagpal is an alumnus of the renowned Central Saint Martins in London, having graduated in 2017. While in college he received The William Atkinson Award for Craftsmanship and won the LVMH Masterclass Competition. After completing his studies, he worked with Peter Pilotto in London and Manish Arora in New Delhi before founding AKHL.
AKHL is rooted in challenging conventional narratives of what India can design and produce. Our emphasis is on redefining traditional Indian handcrafting techniques through material, technical and visual innovation. Ultimately, our endeavor is to deploy these reinvented techniques to create evocative handcrafted fashion that embraces cutting-edge aesthetics, with touches of sexuality and subversion, and positions Indian fashion towards a global 21st century audience.
AKHL is committed to sustainability, our model is centered on manufacturing made-to-last and slow fashion products. In an effort to minimize waste, we exclusively produce on a made-to-order basis for our website and online retailing partners and concertedly work with our brick-and-mortar retailers on mindful stock quantities every season. AKHL also employs a wide range of locally produced and sourced traditional materials in its manufacturing, helping sustain generations-old handicraft cottage industries.
AKHL has stringent policies in place with regard to environmental/consumer safety and protections for our craftsmen. We work with internationally accredited laboratories to test and ensure our materials are free of any harmful chemicals and heavy metals. As a part of our social responsibility initiative, we provide grants and interest-free loans to our craftsmen for education, health and housing related developments.
AKHL showcased its debut collection at Lakmé Fashion Week 2020 as the winner of the prestigious GenNext competition and has been a recipient of various awards since, including the Grazia India Young Fashion Award in 2021 and the Elle India Graduates Designer Of The Year Award in 2022. AKHL has been featured in leading publications and platforms including i-D, The Business of Fashion, The Vanilla Issue, Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam and in Indian editions of Vogue, Elle, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Grazia and Cosmopolitan. The most prominent of these features was the July 2023 cover of Harper’s Bazaar India with AKHL credited as one of labels ushering in ‘A New Era of Fashion’.
AKHL manufactures all of its products in its studio in New Delhi, India and as of 2025 is stocked and showcased in online and brick-and-mortar stores worldwide, including in North America, Europe, Middle East, North Africa, South America and India.
