The IKKIVI Podcast: Exploring Fashion, Culture and Values · Nivi Murthy

S4E11: From India to the World: Fashion, Culture and Identity | Priyanka Khanna

·51 min·3 clips

Priyanka calls the Kolhapuri sandal debate a gray area and says the real issue is research and credit.

Fashion needs its context. Priyanka and the host start with a simple idea: clothes carry the society and culture around them. Craft sits right next to commerce, marketing, know-how, and social media, which makes the whole conversation feel less glossy and more lived in. They talk about Indian design talent, the pride around made in India work, and the uneasy question of whether commerce can really support creative communities. Writing gets its share of attention too. Priyanka wants stories that are researched and textured, not just quick contrary takes. The kolhapuri moment sharpens that point. The issue is not that inspiration exists. It is whether people have the words to call out borrowing when it feels careless. Then the episode turns more personal. Priyanka connects her fictional novel to young women in India caught between desire and expectation, and the host stays with that tension instead of rushing past it. They talk through one generation pushing back against the idea that women should stay home, while the next may face pressure in a different form. Priyanka keeps the frame honest. Her book speaks from urban privileged India, not every Indian life, and that matters. India is described as many countries in one, so the episode never pretends one story can cover it all. The emotional thread is navigation: how women keep faith with themselves while still living inside family and social systems. It ends with gratitude, unfinished schedules, and complexity left intact.

As heard by us

Fashion is framed here as culture, commerce, and identity, not just style.

This episode treats fashion as a lens on culture, class, and the moment a society is living through. It is strongest when it moves from craft communities and made-in-India design talent into the harder business questions around how young designers turn talent into commerce,…

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Why you'd press play

For a thoughtful conversation about Indian fashion, culture, and the context around what gets made and how it is understood.

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