EKA’s Chamba-Inspired Winter Collection Sets The Stage For Its Gurgaon Store Debut

EKA has always built its world slowly, gently, and with a kind of emotional clarity that feels rare in fashion. So when the brand opens a new store in Gurgaon, it feels less like a commercial expansion and more like a new chapter. Rina Singh, the designer and founder, describes it as a moment shaped by years of grounding work. She explains, “That first decade was about building a foundation, not just in terms of design, but in terms of values, sensibility, and the universe we wanted to express.” The new store marks her shift into a phase where she feels ready to expand. “This next decade is very much about claiming that space,” she says.

Walking into the store feels like stepping into EKA’s inner world. Handmade tile roofs, sculptural forms, antiques with a bit of quiet history, and earthy materials all come together to create a space that breathes the language and feel of the brand. Singh never wanted a typical retail environment. “We didn’t want them to be just fashion stores,” she says. “For us, the act of retail needed to transcend commerce and become an act of storytelling, like a museum of emotions.” The result is a space where fabric, emotion, and architecture meet in one gentle, immersive language.

A large part of bringing the store to life came through collaboration, something Singh considers essential. “For a brand like Eka, finding the right collaborators is everything,” she says. Working with Amoeba Design felt instinctive because of their shared respect for Indian materiality and cultural nuance. Yet fashion’s pace always brings its challenges. “At times, I needed to assert my perspective firmly, especially when it came to preserving the brand’s emotional language,” she explains. Even then, alignment in texture, palette, light and grounding helped them arrive at a space that feels authentic, thoughtful, and true to EKA.

The store arrives at the same time as EKA’s Autumn Winter 2025 collection, shaped by the quiet beauty of Chamba embroidery. The story began in Ahmedabad, where Singh discovered an unfinished Chamba Rumal. “It was raw, honest, and almost poetic in its unfinishedness,” she says. The Rumal carried visible tracing lines and mid-process threadwork, a quality that struck her deeply. “That in-between state between what is and what could be felt aligned with my own design language,” she explains.

What followed is a collection that references tradition without feeling weighed down by it. Singh wanted the pieces to stay wearable and contemporary. “I didn’t want to make a literal, craft-heavy collection that overwhelms the wearer,” she says. “Often, when we burden a garment with the full weight of intellectual craft, it becomes more like an artifact than something alive.” Instead, the Chamba references appear in woven motifs, embroideries, prints and layered applications across organza, silk, taffeta, wool and linen. Shooting the campaign in Dasa near Chamba brought the story back to origin, framing it through the gaze of the modern woman.

Textiles remain the emotional core of EKA, and this season continues that legacy. “We leaned into the warmth and depth of wool, especially merino wool,” Singh says. Motifs from the Rumal were woven into wool, block-printed on silk taffeta and organza, and reinterpreted as delicate brooches that sit like “wearable whispers of history.” Every layer is designed to feel tactile and feminine without losing ease.

Underlying the entire collection is Singh’s relationship with nostalgia. For her, it is a living quality rather than a backward-looking one. “The woman who inspires my collections is someone who draws deeply from histories and heirlooms, yet exists fully in the present,” she says. EKA pieces often carry the texture of something familiar, something that already feels like memory. “Perfection has never been our identity,” she adds. “We embrace the poetry of time, the grace of things that were once something and are becoming something else.”

One of her most personal moments remains the Rumal that began this journey. The dealer discouraged her from buying it because it was unfinished. “But the incompleteness is exactly what drew me in,” she says. That instinct for pieces that are half-made, softly aged, or gently imperfect continues to shape EKA’s soul.

Standing at this milestone with a new store and a new collection, Singh feels grounded yet excited for what comes next. “I still feel restless, it’s a fresh chapter and we’re still young within it,” she says. At the same time, she sees new clarity. “The brand has gained a sense of fullness and clarity. We’re simultaneously finding our wings and strengthening our grounding.”

EKA’s next chapter continues to be written in texture, collaboration, memory and quiet evolution. The Gurgaon store becomes the newest space where that story unfolds.

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