Studio Log - March-April 2026
The studio log runs you through the minds of the design team as they explain their own personal tasks, challenges and goals through a month or two at GARUDA.
SUHAIL (ALL ROUND NICE GUY)
the first week of the month was actually still just the travel we prepped for in feb. we were in Bhuj and Mumbai, visiting Khamir mostly.
We finally got to meet a bunch of suppliers who we've been working with for years, and they finally understood why we sound so stupid on the phone after meeting us. Imagine you're a upstanding citizen making fabric for a bunch of companies, and all of a sudden this 120kg dude fully tatted and his brown tripod (gurkamal) show up at your space.
After Ahmedabad and Bhuj we took a flight to Mumbai… why? for a meet up… kidding. fully fucking kidding, we went to Mumbai because theres no direct flight from Bhuj to Chandigarh and i did not want to take another 6 hour drive just to catch a flight. might aswell take a flight to Mumbai do a meet up there then fly direct home.
After that back at the studio back into the swing of things after traveling, a random video, no thought, free style no script about pockets went ballistic on youtube. 1 million views, 20k subs from that one video alone. Something i never even considered before entered my mind, lets get a silver play button.
We also reached 100k on instagram which is also crazy.
Above: Comparison of V1 Masters and V2
Below: Hand felted merino wool modular collar for premium line
We continued to sample aggressively, probably sitting on 12 designs now at this point. No real plan of when to drop, most likely the drop will end up being 4 shirts and a smaller size of the industrial handbag. Then will hold off on Masters V2 till June, till we fulfill all the pending Masters V1 orders. Which went kinda off the charts when we announced discontinuation, fomo is wild.
Marking missed spots of paint at new studio
The new studio has been hectic, it was definitely less stressful than setting up the one we are in right now, which we set up in 2023. But more expensive since its not just a big blank space room. more carpentry more paint. Also just hella spend on storage. The new space houses the raw material in its own separate room which we've gone to a decent effort to organise properly to always have accurate gauges on raw material levels so we can replenish faster and more efficiently.
The new kitchen is nice for the team too. and the dedicated room to shoot ecomm in? chefs kiss on god.
Team movie night, we went to watch the gosling movie where hes in space with a rock dog
I set myself a mental target that i wanted to shift into the new studio by the 31st of March because i wanted to be operational in the new space for start of the new financial year. We started moving on the 30th by some miracle, work was still going on, the staff bathroom wasn't done, the kitchen wasn't done. But the packing room, office, shoot area, and raw material area were all done. we were fully operational in the new space by the 2nd of april.
Now we've been here for 3 weeks as i write this, its great. Everything is more organised, there is room to breathe and think and everyone has adjusted pretty well to all the new systems for raw material usage, replenishment and daily logging tasks we have added to the operations.
Testing a make shift scrim modifier for ecomm photos before buying the real scrim, pretty solid solution would recommend.
Currently our bottle neck is tailors, we are doing everything we can to hire more tailors. Some come for a interview, some come and do a trial, some even work for a few days, but no one has stuck around. the complexity of the work, the intensity of the QC, and overall vibe isn't something thats for everyone. Its probably not easy to adapt to a workflow like ours if you've always been working on a production line. If we can add 2 more our production capacity should be sufficient for a few months before we need more. Gunna keep interviewing. lets see. uhhh… yeah the end.
GURKAMAL (CONTENT GUY (TRIPOD))
First week of March was still me and Suhail on a road trip from Amd all the way till Mumbai like its a buddy cop movie - if the leads were a tripod and Peter Griffin.
Gurkamal being a mad man using 2 cameras at once??? one landscape one vertical what on earth
Suhail had plans for XTANT but it wasn't confirmed whether it's practically and financially viable to tag me along with him. Bro said here's a challenge for you - meet these targets for Feb and March and fuck it I'll bring you with me. Challenge accepted.
We posted a bunch of reels that WERE doing well in terms of engagement and views but weren't really meeting other targets But the show must go on or whatever Jason Derulo said. Kept posting, kept analysing and hoping that out of nowhere something happens that makes up for lost time.
Gurkamal missing being a model now that hes a tripod
And then I got sick for a week. I was like "this is it, I had a fun ride but Spain will have to wait". Soo close to making it, but because of some fuck ass flu I'm smothering myself in bed. Or so I thought.
Out of nowhere, Suhail calls me, "book your shit you're coming". A couple reels started blowing up and I ended up not only meeting my target for March but also making up for the lost numbers from February. The way I hauled ass from one website to another trying to "book my shit" was crazy I was so locked in my flu went away
But the timeline was too short to plan logistically, I couldn't get an appointment date that gave me (and Suhail) enough breathing room to plan. The visa probably would've come around a week after Suhail's already in Europe, and by then it'd be too late for me to join. So I made a judgement call and told him
I cant make it. (Not in time atleast)
(which means probably minimal to no content for the events happening there, sorry I don't make the rules, the embassy does)
Maybe next time
Whoever's reading this from Europe, keep inviting us for more shit it'll be lovely to make content there and meet more of you.
(since now we both know we should've booked at least 2 months prior, huge miscalculation on our part)
Gurkamal at new studio desk, before Sharan made it messy with his general lack of organisation
A lot of orders have emerged out of thin air, and I pulled up to the studio to see the team run around like minions saying paapoye paapoye order this order that banana banana. twas nice to see that, again. mogging moment.
But the team did attend a wine tasting session a couple days ago. It was hella beautiful. Im not even a wine person (team beer) but the kind of drinks I drank I think I might just start saying enchanté instead of fancy a fucken pint innit.
On the upside, Youtube has blown up overnight. Kind of interesting to see how one piece of content works differently on a different platform altogether, even tho we mostly plan content around Instagram algos.
Suhail got selected for GQ's top 30, and when he came back from the event he told me how a lotta people came up to him and told him they loved the vids, like, im talking BIG names. huge fucken flex. but everything eventually passes so we keep it a 100% zen homie. (BIG FLEX THO AMMIRIGHT)
I do think we need to experiment more, rather than milking the same shit that works (which is basically just pissing people off)
Been thinking about how brands use UGC as well, I don't know how well they convert but every other brand using UGC just looks like a tonal nightmare. I hate how the entire brand personality gets fucked because every creator they call has their own style of content (not their fault, just how the trade works) and it keeps meshing with the overall brand language so the brand just becomes an amalgamation of other people's work instead of having it's own unique identity. And when every other brand is using UGC they become lazy cuz they can just post 6 of those instead of making 2-3 effortful reels themselves. Been asking myself how to use UGC in a way that's honest to us and fits perfectly within the brand's social media language.
Social media managers of this time are crazy.
Also fuck chatGPT.
SHARAN (MESSY DESIGN INTERN)
YO, so March and April it is. In March, the new studio finally got renovated and we finally moved in. The new space is quite spacious, with a lot of breathing room. Initially in the month, we knocked off Poncho V2, it just turned out to be a solid kill. I think this product individually would pull off my whole jury, so yeah. Later in the month, we worked on the industrial satchel prototype, the first sample also turned out so lit.
Also, apart from the studio, I explored the Himachal mountains over a few weekends, and the location of the studio is literally so close to these mountains.
Spot the difference, there is none.
Also, we shot the upcoming drop products for the first time in the new studio’s shooting space. I learned about lighting and other technicalities of the e-commerce shoots with Suhail, it was a fun day. The final shoot pictures turned out really good.
Well You know, I am glad to witness the brand’s growth over this period, 100K on Instagram, a booming YouTube audience, and a healthy amount of orders (seeing Suhail’s decision-making in such times is real learning).
Later in the week, we went for dinner at Suhail’s house, as one of Garuda’s part-time employees visited us again, and she is fun.
Following that night, the Garuda team was invited to another wine tasting event, and what a chumma night with chumma people (btw, “chumma” is North Indian slang used to describe something amazing). Also, thanks to the wine, I got the opportunity to watch Mushrp literally fight a tree.
6 bottles of wine deep
Such a good night - good vibes, good food, and good conversations with good people.
Also, George (the first intern of Garuda) was there, he came to attend a marriage. Fun guy, good conversations.
Tbh, I’m having such an enraptured time at this place, and I know one thing for sure, that I’m going to miss this place all of this. And yeah, that’s all.
Well, after all, life’s not that serious (laalahhhaha).
MUSHRP (QC, PACKING, TAILOR, NICE GUY)
Fuck, I’ll tell you how my march and April went, we are screwed by saying we I meant Garuda, we Garuda screwed. We got so many orders to complete, fuck. we need lots of lots of hands. God dammit. oh good news, we didn’t have to call Harish ha ha ha.
Mushrp and Gary
Get back to the great apocalypse type shitt which is we need tailors to work man. Ofcourse Suhail has been working his asshole off to find new tailors, and of course not getting any yet, so all hands on deck.
so we trying to cover the work as much as we can of course so he is on top of us. He even shows up to work on his day off, like Saturday, which everyone has off, but the other day he came to work on Saturday. Crazy man mental I can understand the stress okay.
Hundred percent concentration on the work. Let’s make Garuda better again, ya.
Mushrps new packing and QC room at new studio
this is pretty much it for March. Let’s get back to April and how my April started again. somewhere else, unplanned rain happened and just that you guys know, I fucking hate rain because I ride a motorbike. That’s why that’s mostly it and also sometime I get screwed my leather boots and my clothes I hate rain Yeahh last week.
We got a invitation for wine tasting thingy for Aja. It was an invitation for Garuda of course and the whole team. By the whole team I mean Suhail, Sharan, Gurkamal, me of course and few more people we showed up we had a good time we tasted. I went whole dog shit man after drinking lots of wine. The whole mixing wine thing didn’t work out for me, of course, so I kind of fucked up by the end of this one but we had fun time.
Okay i smoke a cigarette now thanks for reading