Fashion designer Ayush Kejriwal is breaking beauty stereotypes with his collection.
Years ago when designer Ayush Kejriwal started out, he had not envisaged a future in the fashion industry.
He just went with the flow and did what seemed right to him at the time.
'I found it extremely difficult in the beginning to get myself heard in the market place,' he writes on Instagram.
'India has such an amazing bunch of very well-known talented artists, stylists and designers, and creating a name for myself among them seemed like an impossible task, more so because I was not based in India.
'So I decided I was not going to be a part of the industry, rather I would make a world of my own. And that is what I precisely did,' says the designer who is mixing fashion with social messages.
His idea is to use fashion to challenge the notion that 'fair is beautiful'.
If you take a look at his Instagram wall, not only will you be drawn to his fabrics and colours, but also the lovely posts he puts about diversity.
'It is assumed that to be a model you need to be fair and skinny because that makes you pretty,' he said in an interview.
'But that is not true. I want to work with models of all skin tones and sizes because who even decides what is beautiful?
'Dusky women are often told they cannot wear bright colours, but I want to dress up dusky models in beautiful, bright colours.
'The idea is that you can wear whatever makes you happy.'
Each of this posts have a story to tell. While his love for clothes and fabrics like patola are evident in his posts, it's the stand he takes that makes him such a favourite designer on Instagram.
Hand-blocked printed saris from Ayush's collection.
'Many a times, I get messages asking me to suggest something for someone who is dark skinned.
'It breaks my heart when people choose not to wear something they want because they feel they can't due the insecurities they have about their bodies,' the designer captioned this post.
'I feel one can look beautiful in anything as long as they are confident and happy.
'The most gorgeous coloured flowers of all sorts grow on dark brown soil and they look stunning. Nature doesn't feel shy from experimenting with colours then why should we?'
'I often have people ask me -- 'Ayush, why are your pictures so sad, they look melancholy most times?'.
'Have you ever seen a movie that broke your heart?
'Heard a song that shook you to your core?
'Ever experienced something so profound it called attention to some issue you'd rather forget?
'Call me crazy, but I believe this is what art and design is supposed to do: make us feel something, evoke feelings in us and to a certain extent disturb us.'
The designer uses models with crooked teeth, dark skin and different sizes to get people to embrace the idea of diversity.
His handcrafted saris are vibrant yet the designer has often played around with black-and-white portraits to depict the grey shades in society.
