Multi-hyphenate designer and creative director Ikshit Pande's New Delhi and New York-based streetwear label QUOD — short for the Latin phrase 'quod erat demonstrandum', meaning 'proving which was to be demonstrated' — has always been the avant-garde of India's street fashion movement. Writing about QUOD's 'Wonderland' series for Homegrown in 2022, Meghna Mathew wrote: The Wonderland series brings to fore all that QUOD is — fearless, proud, and for everyone, the way they want it. It artistically puts forth the label and its intention and we're here for it!
Four years later, QUOD is marking its sixth anniversary with 'Homecoming' — a short film that blurs the lines between fashion campaign, visual poetry, and emotional memoir. Directed by BAFTA Student Award-nominated filmmaker Neel Soni (Babli by Night, 2025), the film is set amidst the snow-capped hills of Kumaon and marks a deeply personal return to his roots for Ikshit Pande, who grew up in Nainital.
The obscurity of the clothes, their strangeness and specificity was what drew me in. This project felt like painting with film. It was rare and freeing to be able to shape someone else's story while still bringing my own vision to it.Neel Soni
Homecoming is more than just a nostalgic return to Pande's childhood home — it's a visual meditation on memory, childlike vulnerability, and the feeling of truly being oneself. The film reimagines fragments of Pande's childhood — like hand-knit sweaters, glimmering tiger eyes in the dark, and icy staircases on school mornings, weaving them into a dreamlike vision.
In recent years, India's streetwear landscape — once considered an urban niche — has rapidly matured into a powerful cultural movemeny. Designers have blended local textile traditions, community histories, and global references with an instinctive sense of identity; and homegrown streetwear labels like NorBlack NorWhite, and QUOD have redefined what contemporary Indian fashion looks and feels like — rooted in the land and its textures, but never static.
Home is not a place but a state of mind.Ikshit Pande
Grounded in this homegrown ethos, QUOD's Homecoming collection signals a shift away from spectacle toward introspection. "For me, home is not a place but a state of mind — unguarded, wild, honest," Pande says. And that is what he has always tried to make QUOD stand for: a place for people across the world to feel like themselves again.
QUOD has long existed at the centre of India's ménage-à-trois with vintage aesthetics and modern streetwear. The Homecoming collection makes that duality explicit. While its tailored pieces nod to a nostalgic, almost literary past, their styling — with sharp streetwear flamboyance and unisex fluidity — places QUOD firmly at the cutting edge of India's ever-evolving street fashion landscape.
As QUOD enters this new year, the label also enters a new era. 2025 will see a shift to one annual mainline collection, supported by experimental capsules that span festive drops, elevated partywear, menswear, and textile-based reinterpretations. A playful yet thoughtful expansion that invites more people into the fold. This year, there will be a QUOD for everyone.
If you enjoyed reading this, here's more from Homegrown:
Step In Style With These Sophisticated & Timeless Homegrown Footwear Labels
Polite Society's Provocative Collections Are Shaped By Nonconformity & Culture
Delhi Label Hindostan Archive’s Distinctive Menswear Is Handwoven & Homegrown