Indie slow-fashion brand myKynd celebrates the mundu

Elevating Kerala mundu with color, fabric, and style, myKynd offers gender-fluid, contemporary slow fashion for conscious consumers.

Indie slow fashion brand myKynd elevates the Kerala mundu into something more than an off white every-day piece of garment. It plays with colour, fabric and style, coaxing the unassuming mundu to push its boundaries. 

Unmesh Dasthakhir launched myKynd with his co-founder and “muse” Senna Rasool in September 2024 as a curated range of hand-woven, locally-produced mundus that lend themselves to the wearer’s individual style. Unmesh explores fabric, using the fine Jamdani and even linen. Using bold swathes of colour, and prints, these mundus straddle casual and formal wear worlds with poise. Hand block prints, jacquard, natural-indigo-dyed and reversible styles, the repertoire is fresh. The Kerala kasavu appears too, reimagined in colour and with block prints.

“The idea, however, is not to stand out, but blend in,” asserts Unmesh.

While he is the creative head of the brand, Senna, an engineer, is its “left brain”. A multidisciplinary artist and photographer with a master’s degree in design from NIFT, Delhi, Unmesh was in the corporate sector for over 25 years, working with textile and apparel manufacturers and fashion retail brands in India. 

He took a break and ventured into consultancy, working with the Khadi board, offering design support for a campaign to make the Khadi appeal to the younger demographic. “That was how I got reacquainted with Khadi and handloom,” says Unmesh. 

While his work took him to fashion and textile fairs in different parts of the world, he was equally in touch with weavers’ societies, artisans and designers across India. The journey to myKynd, he says, was organic. As an initial experiment before the launch of the brand, he got the Kanhirode Weavers’ Co-operative Society in Kannur to weave indigo mundus and the end products were refreshingly good. “The weavers took some time to warm up to the idea and my designs, but they delivered,” adds Unmesh. The brand believes in ethical labour practices. 

The designs are edgy and contemporary, yet classy. They can be styled with shirts, tees, denim jackets and sneakers. They are light-weight and come in single and double versions as well, not to mention that they are gender fluid. “The sartorial sensibilities of the younger population has undergone a shift and this is largely inspired by the new wave films, hip-hop music, gender discourses, climate consciousness and social awareness,” says Unmesh.