A UNIFYING REPRISE;
A HARMONY OF
MANY VOICES
FOUNDERS
Founded by Karishma Swali and Avantika Swali, Chorus is the outcome of an intergenerational dialogue between creative voices united by a shared commitment to design, culture, and meaningful transformation. Drawing from distinct experiences yet aligned in vision, the duo grounds the brand in an expansive worldview where tradition meets inquiry and beauty becomes a conduit for connection.
Karishma Swali’s practice spans couture, craft, and cultural preservation. Since 1998, she has led Chanakya International, a pioneering embroidery and textile house that has collaborated with over 50 of the world’s leading fashion maisons. In 2016, she founded the Chanakya School of Craft, a nonprofit dedicated to reframing craft as a site of authorship and agency for women. Her contributions to the cultural sector have been recognised internationally, with honours including the Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Mérite and the Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Consul General of France in Mumbai, on behalf of the French government, the BOF 500, and the Badass Art Woman Award (BAWA).
Avantika is a social entrepreneur and multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the intersections of education, imagination, and civic responsibility. In 2014, she founded ACE, a not-for-profit initiative offering holistic, curiosity-led learning to children. ACE now serves over 200 students annually and operates the ACE Book Club, a mobile library that expands access to literature and cultural experiences in underserved communities.
Together, Karishma and Avantika work across art, craft, and daily ritual, seeing creation as a way to connect, express, and explore with freedom.
CHANAKYA INTERNATIONAL
Founded in Mumbai in 1984, Chanakya International is a pioneering textile and embroidery house with a four-decade legacy of sustaining India’s pluralistic craft traditions. Positioned at the intersection of art, couture, and cultural preservation, Chanakya has been instrumental in reframing Indian handcraft within the global language of contemporary visual culture. Under the creative direction of Karishma Swali, the house has built enduring collaborations with over 50 of the world’s leading fashion maisons, artists, and artisans — shaping a material practice that is both conceptually precise and exacting in execution. By challenging entrenched hierarchies between art and craft, it affirms embroidery as a form of intellectual and aesthetic inquiry — a dynamic medium capable of innovation, authorship, and cultural commentary.
CHANAKYA FOUNDATION AND CHANAKYA SCHOOL OF CRAFT
The Chanakya Foundation was born out of an urgent need to address the intertwined challenges of social equity, environmental responsibility, and cultural preservation. Its mission centres on advancing cultural sustainability through education, skill development, and the safeguarding of India’s artisanal heritage while fostering new platforms for creative and collective growth. In 2016, the Foundation established the Chanakya School of Craft — a nonprofit institution dedicated to craft, culture, and the creation of new agency for women. Its curriculum features over 300 hand-embroidery techniques taught through the lens of historical female figures, linking technical mastery with lived narratives and lineage. To date, the school has trained more than 1,100 women across generations and backgrounds, cultivating a vibrant community of skilled, self-determined practitioners. Looking ahead, it envisions a global exchange — where design students from around the world engage with craft as an integral language within art, design, and cultural discourse.
The Chanakya School of Craft facilitates collaborations between graduates, master artisans from Chanakya ateliers, and leading contemporary artists. These partnerships aim to dismantle hierarchies within fine art and introduce an interdisciplinary approach to contemporary practice, positioning the school as a model for preserving craft through formal education. In 2020, the school worked with artist Judy Chicago to produce 22 monumental hand-embroidered works, now on view at the New Museum, New York. In 2023, a collaboration with visual artist Mickalene Thomas resulted in large-scale textile portraits exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum. In 2024, Cosmic Garden, presented by the Chanakya Foundation in collaboration with Indian artists Madhvi and Manu Parekh, Karishma Swali, and the Chanakya School of Craft, was featured as a collateral event at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Most recently, in 2025, En Route debuted at the Vatican Apostolic Library — a collaboration with Maria Grazia Chiuri exploring the cultural legacy of women who challenged historical norms. Created through the collective expression of artisans at the school, the work comprises five textile maps and two globes — contemporary abstractions that examine erasure, rupture, and the untold impact of women throughout history. The Chanakya Foundation and the Chanakya School of Craft reimagine the potential of craft practices, promoting equality, independence, and craft excellence. Their work stands as a testament to the transformative power of collaboration, innovation, and the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, shaping a sustainable future for craft. and its practitioners.
FOUNDING PRINCIPLES
Craft as Language: A devotion to process, where the hand is both medium and metaphor.
Collaborative Intelligence: A commitment to shared authorship – an ever-evolving dialogue shaped by many hands and voices.
Cultural Continuity: A living engagement with tradition, in continual evolution through the lens of contemporary practice. A bridge between ancestral wisdom and the pulse of the present to challenge dominant narratives and provoke dialogue within society.
Creative Inquiry: A tender invitation to embark on a journey of wonder and curiosity where questions become the compass to unexplored possibilities
Ecological Sensibility: A responsibility to material, environment, and the systems they inhabit.
COMMUNITY
“Chorus is a living archive, a sustained inquiry shaped by the principles of cultural continuity and contemporary expression. A new way of collectively crafting tomorrow.”
— Karishma Swali, Co-founder and Creative Director, Chorus
Anchored in a spirit of inquiry and material exploration, Chorus brings together practitioners whose diverse expertise is united by a commitment to excellence and a sensitivity to innovation. Honouring the distinct strengths of each individual, we cultivate a culture of initiative, experimentation, and care — where ideas take form as objects of enduring value. Through their practice, every member contributes to the evolving language of Chorus’ craft and cultural legacy. At Chorus, our master artisans are central to the act of creation. Drawing on inherited techniques and engaging with contemporary tools, our makers navigate the evolving relationship between material and form, giving rise to objects defined by restraint, intention, and lasting beauty.
The atelier also brings together co-founders Karishma and Avantika Swali, LVMH Prize-winning designers Tina and Nikita Sutradhar, artist and designer Joohi Mehta, embroidery specialist Renu Sahu, and the artisans of the Chanakya ateliers. With diverse disciplinary expertise in art, design, and craft, this assembly of practitioners explore how form, memory, and material come togetherin meaningful ways.
ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY
With an enduring commitment to the tactile and the elemental, Chorus explores texture and transformation as both aesthetic and philosophical acts. Whether working with handwoven kala cotton from Kutch, Forest Stewardship Council–certified viscose, eri silk, or repurposed textiles, each material decision reflects a deeper ethic of resilience grounded in respect for people, process, and the ecologies we inhabit.
Chorus upholds some of the highest sustainability standards in the luxury industry. While Chorus meets leading global standards, such as PETA-Approved Vegan and Green Business Certification, its commitment to sustainability goes beyond compliance. The brand’s ongoing relationships with women-led weaving communities and natural dyeing initiatives speakto its dedication to local economies and ecologies. Certifications like ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 affirm responsible environmental management and quality practices, but they are only part of the affirm responsible environmental management and quality practices, but they are only part of the story. At Chorus, these frameworks work in harmony with deep-rooted cultural knowledge and traditional techniques. Global accountability and ancestral craft are not at odds; they inform and strengthen one another.
CULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY
At Chorus, sustainability begins with preservation of knowledge, of community, of the hand.Rooted in a legacy of excellence and savoir-faire, the studio is committed to ensuring that craft traditions are not only remembered, but lived. By honouring intergenerational skill and creating space for its evolution, Chorus champions a model of cultural continuity, inviting new perspectives and meaningful dialogue.