Two obsessions, one label

Nawaweeb is an anime-inspired streetwear label from Lucknow. It started the way most of these start: a group chat, a shared subtitle file, and a growing suspicion that the shirts sold to people like us were bad on purpose. Thin cotton, someone else’s character slapped on the chest, gone after two washes.

We wanted the opposite. Heavyweight cotton at 480 GSM. Boxy, dropped-shoulder fits that hang properly on Indian frames. Graphics drawn from scratch, in ink, by artists we pay. Never a lifted still.

The second half came from the city itself. Lucknow has been doing Chikankari, white thread on white cotton worked entirely by hand, since the Mughal court. Our karigars are a short ride from the studio. Putting a bel buti motif on the cuff of a manga tee sounded absurd until we saw it. Now it’s the thing people notice first.

Everything is made in short runs. Sixty pieces a colourway, numbered, then the file is closed. We would rather sell out than sit on stock, and we would rather you owned something with a number on it than something infinite.

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