CHAPTER 1
Aanchal Malhotra in conversation with Pranav Kirti Misra
By Aanchal Malhotra
Can a garment act as a bridge between literature and a boy in Lucknow?
Pranav Kirti Misra delves into the beginnings of his eponymous brand
Pranav Kirti Misra has been a household name in the Indian fashion industry for the last fifteen years. He was born in 1984 in Lucknow, studied at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, and now lives in New Delhi. His brand, Huemn – a wordplay on ‘human’, where hue stands for colour – has embodied and celebrated the diversity found within people. Its collections have focused on nuanced storytelling and inclusivity, with its clothes challenging conventional silhouettes with distressed denims, hybrid saris with double pallus, graffiti-adorned T-shirts, and sweatshirts with subtle political undertones. For Pranav, the devil is always in the details – whether conceptual or tangible.
I have known Pranav for many years now, but with a person as cavernous as him, there is always something new to discover and discuss – a line from a poem he cannot stop thinking about, a book I feel he must read, conversations on language and translation, the politics of the world, film, fashion, tenderness and love. We both enjoy reading our work out loud, and listening to the other, for a voice can be enchanting. The best way I’d describe him is as someone hungry for knowledge and interested in a beauty that resists categorization. He is loyal to whatever feeds inspiration – a mountain, a poem, or the depth of his own history.
Pranav is also a Hindi writer and poet. I have to admit that initially, I found this incongruent with his career as a fashion designer, for the outcome of both art forms is so contrasting – at least on the surface. But the deeper you descend into his stories, the more the same threads connect the many facets of his being. The designer and poet are drawn from the same philosophical core. Pranav’s memories of growing up in Lucknow, in the villages of his parents and among the mango orchards his great-grandfather planted, have long captivated me. There is a rootedness to this world, an interiority, a particular shading of the past that we only glimpse in Huemn, but deepens in his newest brand, Misraa.
Seated in my living room, when Pranav and I speak about Misraa, we are both wearing its signature kurtas – stark white, save a tiny embroidered logo of one and a half stars on the sleeve. There is no additional adornment. The gentleness of the morning is reflected in the cloth. I imagine my grandfather wearing something similar as a young man, and immediately it makes me smile. Gauzy sunlight streams in from the balcony, leaving the plants glistening. My two dogs saunter in and out. We talk for about an hour, and end with each of us reading a poem aloud – him, one of his own, and me, something by Anna Akhmatova.
Here are some excerpts from our conversation.
Aanchal Malhotra: Misraa feels very rooted in your childhood in Lucknow. Can we start there?
Pranav Kirti Misra: It is, actually. Me starting to wear kurtas happened largely during the pandemic - I felt a big shift in who I was, and started to know myself better during that period. There was complete isolation, not just physically but also mentally, and I had the opportunity to turn inward. A feeling emerged in me then for the first time – what does the industry I am surrounded by and the work I do on a day-to-day basis mean in my life? What is its meaning in my life? Because now, there is no world. There is no one to call, no one to see. Now there is no urgency to wear a beautiful shirt or jacket. Now how will I live at home?
Let me find another way to connect what I am trying to say to your question about Lucknow. There is an interesting story from when my father was 17 or 18 years old in Lucknow, looking for his first job, and one day, he meets a handsome, very interesting man in a paan shop. He was fond of eating paan, you see. Have I told you this story already?
Aanchal Malhotra: (smiles) I’ve heard many stories about your dad, but no, not this one. Not yet..
Pranav Kirti Misra: My father told this story multiple times! I don’t know what the man saw in him, but they became good friends. He used to call him Misra. He said that all the people my father had surrounded himself with wouldn’t get him anywhere; they’d only hamper his growth. So he said, “We will meet at Clarks Awadh,” which at that time, used to be the most brilliant coffee house in Lucknow. Even before the five-star culture. The plan was that they would have coffee there, and my father would pay the bill! He did not have any money, this guy (laughs). So my father somehow agreed because of the conversation they were having – about books and life – and long story short, they started meeting and having coffee…
Aanchal Malhotra: And your father would pay each time?
Pranav Kirti Misra: Well, he’d gotten his first job, but it was expensive! But then, my father was also probably learning some things from him - about life, philosophy, certainly poetry. He had a big impact on my father's poetic life. He, himself was a poet. So, my father once raised the issue that they could drink coffee anywhere, so why here? It was expensive. And the man said, “Misra, this coffee, alcohol, these are recreational things, where the imagination of a mind can come to the surface. A person comes here to relax, to invest their time in themselves, to sit and talk with their friends. So, all the conversations you will listen to here will impact you psychologically, because then you will aspire for a life better than the one you have.”
Amidst all this, one day, he made plans to come to my father’s home for tea. My father lived alone at that time, in a house full of books. When this man arrived, my father was making tea, dressed in a checkered lungi and a vest. And the man yelled at him! He said, “this is you, the real you. Misra, the most important time is the one when no one sees you. What do you talk about then? How clean do you keep the deepest corner of your house where no one goes? What kind of jokes are you telling at that time when you are in your comfort zone, that’s you. The rest is all projection.”
So I think – going around in circles – this is where my mind was during the pandemic. I didn’t have to go anywhere, and no one had to see me, but I found comfort in the kurta. There was no projection. It was polished and close to my roots, but at the same time, it was not lazy. I wore it and still felt like a better version of when I woke up in the morning.
He said, “this is you, the real you. Misra, the most important time is the one when no one sees you. What do you talk about then? How clean do you keep the deepest corner of your house where no one goes? What kind of jokes are you telling at that time when you are in your comfort zone, that’s you. The rest is all projection.”
-Pranav Kirti Misra
Aanchal Malhotra: What kind of clothes did your father wear when you were a child?
Pranav Kirti Misra: You know, he was very fond of his Moga silk shirts. He used to go to Gandhi Ashram and get beautiful Khadi and other fabrics to get his kurtas made. I think the whole business of buying clothes from outside started with me, when I was a child. But my father would get his things made and that's why his wardrobe was very beautiful. Classic browns and beiges. And I often think, when I look back now, about where that taste come from. His background did not provide any kind of fashion inspiration – my grandfather was a farmer. So, I think the people he surrounded himself with, including this gentleman, just made him super hungry to be progressive, to be aesthetical. You know, to develop a certain sense of taste, whether in literature or clothes or lifestyle.
Aanchal Malhotra: Yeah, I can see that. . . You’ve run a very successful clothing brand called Huemn for nearly a decade and a half. But Misraa feels like quite a departure from that. Of course, in the design of the pieces, but also how you talk about the brand – there is a different joy and curiosity; the motive feels different too. So, what happened when you started dressing for yourself?
Pranav Kirti Misra: There was a time when I was a complete outside to fashion. When I started out, coming from Lucknow, I never dreamt of becoming a designer, which is probably why I'm still uncomfortable saying I'm a designer. But I think a sequence of tragic incidents right before, and leading up to the pandemic helped me question who I was, who I had become. And then I started going back to . . . unknowingly, I started seeing value in what I had left behind.
Aanchal Malhotra: Do you think loss had a big role to play in this also?
Pranav Kirti Misra: A huge role. I mean my life is designed, defined by . . . Loss has had a huge impact on me as a person. I feel strongly that life is a permutation and combination of love and loss. But how does that reflect in the way you make things, whether it’s through words or clothes? It becomes a part of your DNA, to a certain extent. It can be a tool for creative work, just as much as it can be counterproductive for creative growth. How Rilke says that, “Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. No feeling is final.” So you are mindful that this episode has happened, and you always pray to God that if you had no role in the tragedy that happened, and you were not in control, then to not let this episode change the innocence of the child within you.
Aanchal Malhotra: I find it interesting that we return to childhood. Did the pandemic become a moment of reckoning for you in that sense?
Pranav Kirti Misra: Well, I am known for my fashion; at Huemn, we are known for making cool clothes and designs. During the pandemic, I thought a lot about what that meant to me. What did it mean to be on all these Best Dressed lists? Because when I am walking down a street, say in Lucknow, sometimes there is a wall between me and the person on the road, like actual India. And I thought, what is the use of this? At my core, I want to be around people, I want to touch lives with the way I think, with warmth. But I’m looking at them and there is an unsaid wall between us – the way I dress, the community I am now part of. When did this happen? Because I grew up in that India, in that Lucknow. I was the boy farming in my village during summer holidays, playing with a tire, wearing a lungi and fully covered in mud. My father used to say that this was my best and most beautiful trait – that I could blend in the society I lived in.
But how could I help show the door when I’d already shut the door? I think it was only natural that I started to question the idea of exclusivity and inclusivity. You know, in the worlds of art, fashion, literature, we talk about inclusivity, but we are always shutting doors on the masses. Maybe it is an ego boost to be an intellectual and say, “I’m so artistic that no one can understand me,” you know? But, in fact, as an artist, it is my responsibility that you understand me. If I am creating what I create simply for my own creative satisfaction, then I can't help another hand to have aspirations and ambitions. Which is where I unknowingly found comfort in..
Aanchal Malhotra: …in Misraa?
"I was the boy farming in my village during summer holidays, playing with a tire, wearing a lungi and fully covered in mud."
-Pranav Kirti Misra
Pranav Kirti Misra: In kurtas. I found comfort in kurtas. I mean, Misraa must have come to me very organically in this process. Now, it’s been six years since the idea.
Aanchal Malhotra: Yeah, I remember you telling me about it, and then of course, over the years, seeing you wear these kurtas – out at work events, at home for coffee, even at your poetry readings. See, in my mind, the kurta embodies the poetic you. But how do you think, as the creator, Misraa differs from Huemn?
Pranav Kirti Misra: Well, I haven’t approached Misraa from the perspective of making another thing to sell. I believe in the concept of People, Places, Poetry – I want to build a culture which is around poetry, around conversations, which is not slow or dated. I want a 16 or 17 year old to feel the process I have gone through, to take part in the conversation. They are wearing sneakers, they’ve put on their denims, and instead of a T-shirt, they opt for a kurta and see how cool it is.
Aanchal Malhotra: Do you remember we had a conversation about the sari a few years ago, when at Huemn, you had just made a double pallu sari and then a quilted one? You said then that there was an emotional history, a nostalgia attached to the sari, where it was the garment of our mothers and grandmothers. But it was also one of haute couture and royalty, and at the same time, was worn by farmers, teachers, politicians, and women across India going about their everyday. It was both elevated, and a garment of extreme mundanity. So, similarly, what is so special about a kurta?
Pranav Kirti Misra: Yeah, a sari is indispensable to Indian culture. And in the same way, a large part of the country wears the kurta, but we don’t see younger people being attracted to it. There is a problem with gaze and perception – the way we look at it. It is something we lounge in, it is mundane, not something we dress up in everyday. I would like to make it a cool alternative to the T-shirt.
I’d already so much work in the streetwear segment with Huemn, that the first thing I started to question was – when we talk about streetwear, why is it only a T-shirt or a sweatshirt that come to mind? Those silhouettes didn't originate here. On our streets in India, we see the kurta or the lungi, and I’ve done renditions of that on the runway. So, if these are things that we have grown up with, why aren’t we able to make these cool?
Aanchal Malhotra: Can I ask you then (smiles) – How do you make something cool?
Pranav Kirti Misra: It is an ongoing process, I think, to define coolness. But what I have roughly understood in life, through all the heroes that I’ve had with respect to poetry or cinema or, you know, even my father . . . I think the majority of society, the way the world is designed, and more so in the digital age today, there is a desperation for people to fit in, because everyone has a certain lack of identity of what they are, who they are, what they represent. And in this digital age, you have the proof in front of you – if you don’t make a reel on a popular song, you won't reach people.
But I think coolness primarily comes from authenticity - that if you are the naked you, the real you, then there is only one of you in this world. The way you talk, maybe taking a pause in between, that’s you. So the whole point is how much of yourself you put into your work. Without references, without what the world is saying. When you separate from that formula and put in anything of your own, that will be cool because there will be a certain curiosity about it. Coolness also has curiosity. The whole thing can’t be entirely understood (laughs).
“…in the digital age today, there is a desperation for people to fit in, because everyone has a certain lack of identity of what they are, who they are, what they represent.”
-Pranav Kirti Misra
Aanchal Malhotra: So can we talk about the word Misraa? Of course, it is a play on your last name, but it also has another meeting.
Pranav Kirti Misra:Misraa largely draws its inspiration from its literal Farsi meaning, which is one line of a poem. That idea lends itself to our logo as well, which is one and half stars – something I got tattooed long ago. I believe that wherever we are in our lives, any stage, however young or old, no matter how much progress we make or how low we are in life, there is much more to learn, grow, see, live, love than what we have. So it is always incomplete. Similarly, a kurta on a hanger, even if it is beautifully stitched, will only come to life when a person who wears it, from the personality of the wearer. I’ve believed this at Huemn too. Beauty is when there is a collaboration between the wearer and what they are wearing. You see, a misra without the rest of the poem is always incomplete.
Aanchal Malhotra: I think also, wearing this now, I can say there is nowhere actually to hide in it. There is no adornment on this kurta, you cannot fool anyone, shape or fold it in a different way. There is only the simplicity of how you carry it. But there is also a delightfully old fashioned feel – the crispness, the structure, it is a garment of style and substance.
Pranav Kirti Misra: Yes, very well said. I think about that when I remember how my father dressed. I think a lot of my father is in this. . . In everything I do, actually.
Aanchal Malhotra: So, one last question. Who is Misraa for?
Pranav Kirti Misra: For everybody.
Aanchal Malhotra: Well, that’s easy enough to say..
Pranav Kirti Misra: But it is the hardest to execute! My ambition is that it should be for everyone, because the product is not just the only thing that we intend to present. I want to build a world with literature as a cultural tool right at its centre. My life changed the day I read Bukowski, even though I am far away from Bukowski’s world now. Similarly, there are so many more writers whose works have influenced me over the last four or five years, completely contrasting in nature to Bukowski. Like Rilke, who I met through you, and is now such an integral part of my psychology, my world. A world that revolves around poetry and literature. If our work can introduce a young boy or girl living in Lucknow or Patna to a German poet, and if listening to a poem can change their perspective on life, then that is a bridge. I want to build this as a brigde. Misraa is a bridge.
You see, for me, clothes are still a very outer shield. They reflect who you are. When I wear this white kurta or a pink one, or a shiny kurta made of Ikat, after some time, that kurta will come to be defined by what I am saying. You will start seeing that kurta in the shape of me; it is nothing in itself. So this, I think, is the beauty of clothes – that without the wearer, they are actually incomplete. One and a half stars.
Aanchal Malhotra is an author and oral historian based in New Delhi.
Banner: Aanchal is seen in the Misraa Signature V Neck Kurta.
Pranav is seen wearing the Misraa Signature Kurta - White, paired with the Misraa Signature Pants - White.
Photo credits: Koushik Kundu.
26th April 2026