The contract nobody signed but everyone kept
For decades, the measure of an Indian designer was whether the West noticed. A slot at Paris Fashion Week. A feature in Vogue International. A collaboration with a heritage European house. The aspiration was legible and the ladder was clear: start in Delhi or Mumbai, aim outward, and let the validation travel back home as proof of worth. Most designers didn't choose this framework consciously. They inherited it the way you inherit a family's idea of a good match, by seeing it rewarded, again and again, until it stopped looking like a choice.
