Adarsh Balak: From school charts to London Fashion Week style makeover
Image: Himiller (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
India’s favourite “Adarsh Balak” — the moustache-and-shorts “ideal boy” illustration once printed on school notice boards and stationery — has been reimagined as high fashion, headlining Delhi-based label Lovebirds’ debut at London Fashion Week, justifying the buzz around a nostalgic image finding its way onto a global runway.
Lovebirds, founded by designers Amrita Khanna and Gursi Singh, has built its identity around reviving everyday Indian visual culture from the 1960s through the 1980s, turning familiar imagery like old advertisements, studio photo backdrops and classroom posters into couture-level pieces. The label describes its work as a way of holding onto nostalgic Indian references while presenting them with contemporary craftsmanship.
At the London show, held on September 24, 2026, the brand presented its Spring/Summer 2027 collection titled “India: IYKYK,” built around fabrics including chintz, dupion, tussar and Banarasi brocade, with artisans from Kutch in Gujarat and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh contributing to the handwork. A standout piece was a strapless blue-checked gown with a black obi-style belt carrying a hand-painted Adarsh Balak illustration, while even everyday Bata rubber chappals were reworked into sculptural heels for the runway.
The designers described the collection as “a nostalgic yet razor-sharp love letter to the India of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s,” a framing that resonated with an international fashion audience unfamiliar with the original poster but drawn to its playful, illustrated style. For Indian viewers, the sight of a childhood classroom reference walking a London runway has turned into one of the more talked-about moments of this fashion season, blending memory with high craftsmanship.
