Rahul Mishra’s Masterpiece: A Living Museum of Couture in Mumbai

Some stores sell clothes. Others sell dreams. Rahul Mishra’s new flagship at Mumbai’s historic Horniman Circle does both, and then goes further. Spanning 7,500 sq. ft, Maison Rahul Mishra is less a boutique and more a living museum, where every wall, surface, and corner tells a story of couture, handwork, and imagination.

Conceived in close collaboration with architect and designer Rooshad Shroff, the space redefines what a flagship can be. It’s an immersive journey into Mishra’s world, where embroidery and narrative design leap off the garments to inhabit the architecture itself.

“When we were approached to design Rahul Mishra’s flagship boutique, we knew the space had to transcend conventional retail design,” says Shroff. “It couldn’t simply be a backdrop for garments, it needed to become a physical extension of Rahul’s universe, one that immerses visitors in the tapestry of storytelling and craftsmanship that defines his work.”

The journey through the flagship unfolds like a book. Step inside and you’re greeted with a gallery that offers glimpses into Mishra’s inspirations—sketches, muslin swatches, and botanical embroideries, before giving way to sculptural mannequins, embroidered walls, and immersive rooms themed around the natural worlds that often recur in his collections. Botanical gardens, fluttering insects, and avian motifs are reimagined as tactile experiences—wood marquetry, handwoven carpets, inlaid embroidery, etched marble, and bespoke lighting that extend couture into architecture.

The crescendo comes in the final chamber, though. A soaring gallery where hand-crafted metal birds appear frozen mid-flight, their motion mirrored in marquetry motifs along the walls.

From archival drawings and embroidery swatches to dried flowers and motifs transformed into objects of art, most of what inhabits the store was created within the Rahul Mishra studio itself. Mishra reflects on the creation of the boutique as “a slow, almost meditative process”, which was less about constructing a store and more about composing a living museum, one that breathes and evolves with time, just like the collections it holds. “It is our largest store yet, but also one of the most personal, because it speaks to our shared belief in storytelling, silence, and the power of handwork.”

Where: Ground Floor, City Ice Building, Opposite Reserve Bank of India, Kala Ghoda Mumbai – 400001