A few weeks ago, I packed up and headed to New York with Mṛjā Collective, not entirely sure what I’d come back with, but certain I needed to be in the room.
The Pop-Up
We set up at the Canvas Store in SoHo, expecting maybe 40 people. Eighty-four showed up.
Ura Maku, Huemn, and Capisvirleo anchored the space with the Summer, Made collection, and we ran a live block-printing station so people could watch the craft happen instead of just hearing about it.
In the weeks leading up to it, we’d been reaching out to stylists, creative directors, and buyers across the city - the kind of cold, persistent outreach that doesn’t always pay off. Many of them actually came.
The conversations around that block-printing table were some of the most valuable feedback I’ve had on this work. People weren’t just admiring the clothes; they wanted to know where they came from, who made them, why the dyes looked the way they did, and how the craft had survived.
That’s the whole thesis of Mṛjā in one afternoon.
Walking Into Boutiques, Cold
Beyond the pop-up, I spent days walking into boutiques across the Lower East Side, SoHo, Brooklyn, and the Upper West Side. No introductions, just walking in and starting conversations.
Some went nowhere. Others turned into real relationships.
A few stores have stayed with me. Oroboro, curated by April Hughes, felt deeply considered. While I was there, I overheard a woman tell April that before every important event in her life, she comes to Oroboro to buy one thing. I loved that. It’s the kind of relationship very few stores get to have with their customers.
IF Soho reminded me that retail can still surprise you with a point of view that’s unapologetically its own. And Clic showed how fashion, design, photography, and objects can quietly coexist, creating an experience that’s about much more than shopping.
What struck me most was that every boutique owner has an incredibly specific sense of what belongs in their store, yet very few can fully explain it. They simply know it when they see it.
That instinct - that deeply human, often unspoken sense of taste - is exactly what Mukura is built around.
Fashionology Summit : The Taste Problem
I also spent a day at the Fashionology Summit, moving between panels on shopping behaviour, the influence economy, modern commerce, and the future of retail.
Different speakers, same underlying question: how do people discover what they actually want?
One panel explored how shopping is shifting from browsing to intent, with AI becoming increasingly agentic. Another argued that in a world saturated with content, trusted taste is becoming increasingly scarce. And during a conversation on luxury resale, Sarah Davis of Fashionphile made a point that stayed with me: AI can never have taste. Humans always will.
That became the thread connecting everything I’d seen that week.
Personalization, AI agents, and better commerce infrastructure all assume there’s a signal worth optimizing. But taste isn’t something you can scrape from the internet or average across millions of people. It’s built through years of developing a point of view.
That’s the bet we’re making with Mukura - not that AI replaces taste, but that it can learn from the people who have it.
Every boutique has its own curatorial identity, built over years of saying yes to certain pieces and no to thousands of others. Our goal is to help make that identity discoverable, so the right brands and the right retailers find each other because they’re genuinely aligned, not because everyone is chasing the same trend.
Looking back, every room I walked into in New York gave me another angle on the same problem.
I’ve been deliberately putting myself in more rooms lately - some exciting, some uncomfortable, many where I hardly knew anyone. One day it was three coffees with three different people, each conversation leaving me with something I’m still thinking about.
I’m leaving New York with a much sharper sense of what we’re building, and who we’re building it for.
If you’re a boutique that’s built a distinctive point of view, we’d love to talk.
Many of the buyers I met source from places like Paris and Japan - and for good reason. They have incredible design ecosystems. But India has an equally rich world of contemporary craft that’s still surprisingly undiscovered globally.
At Mṛjā, we curate independent designers creating thoughtful, artisan-led collections that feel rare, modern, and deeply rooted in craft. Because we work across multiple brands, we can help boutiques discover pieces that genuinely fit their aesthetic instead of asking them to sift through hundreds of collections themselves.
If you’re looking for fresh additions that feel aligned with your taste, not just the latest trend, contact us.
More soon.
