'Now, the world is waking up': Vikram Goyal on bringing Indian craftsmanship to the global stage

In the past few years, Vikram Goyal has been at the forefront of India's emergence onto the global design scene. His eponymous New Delhi studio, renowned for its limited-edition metal repoussé work – now found at Nilufar in Milan, The Future Perfect in the USA, and Curio and Abask in the UK – has been showcasing the potential of Indian craft to the world. But Goyal is the first to point out that he is neither an artisan nor a designer, but rather someone who operates in a ‘third space’ – shaping ideas, materials, and craftsmanship into something entirely new.

His journey began far from the world of craft and interiors. Trained as an engineer, Goyal initially pursued a career in development economics, studying at Princeton before working as an economist at Morgan Stanley. His early years in finance took him from New York to Hong Kong and Morocco. Yet, despite his success, he felt unfulfilled. The corporate world offered little room for his deep-seated appreciation of aesthetics, heritage, and material culture – passions that, he says, had always lingered in the background of his life.

In 2000, amid the dot-com boom, he made a bold move back to India, initially exploring opportunities in the emerging digital sector. But it was his enduring fascination with indigenous craft and design that ultimately defined his path. As co-founder of Kama Ayurveda, he helped translate centuries-old wellness traditions into a contemporary holistic skincare brand. However, it was through his eponymous metalwork studio set up in 2002 – and its sister brand, VIYA, a more accessible lifestyle brand launched last year – that he fully embraced his role as a cultural interpreter, bridging the gap between traditional Indian craftsmanship and global contemporary design.

Your studio is known for its repoussé metalwork and craftsmanship. Can you tell us about how it operates and what sets it apart?

The key thing about our work is that we work in metal. I started this about 23 years ago, and while most in the field use cast metal—pouring wax into moulds—we work with sheet metal. It comes in rolls, which are then treated and shaped into three-dimensional forms.

I’m neither an artisan nor a designer; my role is to drive the workshop model forward. We have about 200 people – artisans, engineers, and designers – who come together to create our work. Because we have our own workshop, we can push the boundaries in ways others can't. If you go to a foundry and ask them to make something, they won’t experiment much. But for us, everything happens in our own backyard, allowing us to push the boundaries.

One of our biggest innovations is in the world of repoussé. The process starts with an artwork, which is placed onto a metal sheet, then flipped onto a bed of wax. It’s then heated and chiseled from the back. Because you’re applying pressure from behind, the final outcome isn’t visible until the very end. Only once the piece is finished do you pick it up and see what you’ve actually created.

Your work draws from traditional Indian craftsmanship but reinterprets it in contemporary ways. How do you balance tradition and innovation?

Traditional sheet metalwork was used to create surface decoration for ceilings, temple doors, and ritual vessels. We’ve taken that to an entirely new dimension. Even within repoussé, we’ve explored everything from chinoiserie to more abstract and minimal designs. Our work spans repoussé, brutalism, and what we call "hollow joinery."

You've recently expanded beyond metal into other crafts through your new homeware brand VIYA. What has that process been like?

It's been exhilarating. And I keep having to tell myself to stop working so hard, because I just get so excited. Discovering cane was fantastic – someone came to our studio and sat on the floor and started weaving. Six months later we were supplying cane trolleys to Cabana magazine. Then we started working with rope. India has a tradition of rope beds [called charpais], so we started making super contemporary rope chairs. From there, we explored embroideries, block printing and different kinds of Kashmiri embroidery (an intricate craft, celebrated for its rich colours and detailed scenic motifs). I have a team of designers working on the studio. I have teams of designers dedicated to different materials – metal, cane, soft furnishings – and we just started working with carpets. So it's an ongoing process of discovery.

India’s design scene is getting more international attention. How do you see the country’s role in the global design landscape evolving?

It's incredible how so many things have happened all at once: Dior doing its fashion show here with the focus on the craft and on the embroideries (On March 30, 2023, under the creative direction of Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior presented its Fall 2023 collection at the historic Gateway of India in Mumbai which coincided with a trio of exhibitions in the city); the opening of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, and now the arrival of Nilaya Anthology (where Goyal's studio has a dedicated space). I see a growing sense of pride among Indians in their own heritage.

For years, our studio was banging the drum for modern Indian design while consumers were still buying Italian. Now, I see they’re still buying Italian—but they also want a piece of modern India. There’s a growing sense of pride, and that’s shifting demand. On the supply side, too, more designers are doing interesting work. Every year at the design fairs, I discover incredible new Indian designers who are pushing boundaries. It’s happening on both ends – a gradual integration of Indian design sensibility into the global landscape.

India has always been a manufacturing powerhouse for global brands, producing everything from fashion to carpets to brass. When I started, my idea was to move beyond the ‘cheap and cheerful’ perception of Indian design and help restore its historic position as a global leader in creativity, craft, and innovation. Now, the world is waking up.

What’s next for you and your studio?

Our products are largely India-agnostic. In terms of materiality, they have an inherently Indian quality—the tones, the colours—but the design itself isn’t traditionally Indian. My goal is to build a global brand that showcases the depth and breadth of Indian craftsmanship. At the same time, each design is rooted in an Indian narrative—whether it draws from a myth, fable, architectural form, or landscape. Every piece has a name and a story behind it.

vikramgoyal.com
viyadesign.com