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Homegrown looks at New Delhi menswear label Countrymade and founder Sushant Abrol, whose work brings together military and workwear references, Indian craftsmanship and personal stories. We also take a closer look at FOUNDRY, the brand’s AW26 collection inspired by foundries and industrial processes, with boiled wool, fused denim, distressed fabrics, heated metal-inspired colours and handworked details shaping its take on heavy workwear.
After spending several years in Indian fashion, including a long stint with Rohit Bal, designer Sushant Abrol started Countrymade in New Delhi in 2019 with an interest in military clothing, workwear, and the kind of garments that gain more character the more they are worn. Sushant’s brother, Squadron Leader Samir Abrol, was an Indian Air Force pilot who died in a fighter-jet crash in 2019. His death became the starting point for Countrymade’s first collection, ‘Beyond the Clouds,’ and continued to inform Abrol’s work in the years that followed. Today, Abrol runs the label through its own studio and workshop, working with craftspeople across India on embroidery, patchwork, textile manipulation and other hand processes.
Countrymade’s new Autumn/Winter 2026 collection titled ‘FOUNDRY’ takes inspiration from the physical work inside a factory where metal is cast — Heat, pressure, erosion, compression and fusion become ways of treating the fabric. Wool is boiled and worked into new textures, knits are fused with denim to create what Countrymade calls ‘textile alloys’, and denim is patched, layered and eroded. Coated and distressed surfaces bring in the look of heat and wear, while the fabrics still retain their original character.
Chore jackets, truckers, bombers, work shirts and soft blazers make up much of the collection, giving all the fabric experimentation a reliable silhouette to shine on. Barmer appliqué, Ikat, Kantha, hand embroidery, patchwork and layered construction are worked into the clothes, bringing Indian craft techniques into Countrymade’s workwear vocabulary. Stitch lines run across pieces to suggest pressure points and paths of erosion, while different layers show where fabrics have been joined, damaged or worked over. The colour palette follows heated metal too, with stunning yellow ochre, bronze, oxidised shades, blue, black and charcoal. Worn-tar-inspired, scorched, industrial textures create an imaginative and artful version of workwear.
FOUNDRY comes from Countrymade’s larger idea of ‘Nostalgic Utility,’ which brings together military and utilitarian clothing, Indian craftsmanship and Abrol’s storytelling through textiles. “I have always tried to explore how a garment can hold memory, and what happens when memory meets material,” he shares. “When that is shaped through an individual point of view, the garment begins to carry an expression of its own, and a reason to exist beyond function.”
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