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Prakhar Rao Singh Chandel

@chandel.zt

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Craft, character & cultural identity.
Creative Design Head and Founder: @zt.international

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Handwoven. Artisanal. Handcrafted. Conscious. These words have been used so many times in the last two years that they’ve stopped meaning anything.

So instead of using them, here are the actual people behind them. This is the Hardoi cluster, Uttar Pradesh. A community of weavers and artisans whose work left a village in UP, walked a runway at London Fashion Week, and is now sitting in wardrobes across the world. Nobody put them on a mood board, nobody discovered them. They were already here, doing what their families have done for generations, with a precision that no trend cycle invented and no trend cycle will outlast.

The karigar, Munna ji, in the third frame has been doing this more than 30 years. The woman in the sixth frame works faster than any machine we’ve seen — and with more intention than any algorithm could replicate. This is what “handcrafted” actually looks like when it’s not a buzzword. It looks like someone’s hands. Their workshop. Their Tuesday. Every Zero Tolerance piece starts here, not in a design software, not on a trend forecast, not in a boardroom deciding what’s relevant this season. Here. With these people. In Hardoi.

If this is the kind of work you want to wear and the kind of story you want to be part of — it’s @zt.international

Follow if you want to keep seeing the real side of what we make, I am busy journaling how I felt when I visited Rehmat Ali ji & Munna ji in Hardoi. by @chandel.zt

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taken in Central London by @chandel.zt

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The photograph is a formal court portrait from late 19th century British India — a young maharaja, likely in his late teens, photographed at the height of his investiture. The setting is deliberately constructed: embroidered textile wall hangings, an ornate Indo-Victorian throne, a Persian carpet, a velvet footstool. Every element is a statement of sovereignty.

He sits on a European chair with lion armrests, post-1857 princely courts adopted Western furniture as diplomatic signalling while holding their dress completely Indian. The photograph itself was a power document, sent to British courts, exchanged between kingdoms.

Every major conversation in contemporary Indian luxury fashion — the achkan revival, the handloom brocade moment, the churidar as a serious silhouette, traces back to portraits exactly like this one. Sabyasachi quotes it. Abu Jani quotes it. The difference is most quote the aesthetic. Very few go back to the actual craft source, the weavers, the embroiderers, the loom.

That’s the gap Zero Tolerance occupies. taken in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh by @chandel.zt

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Your wildest dreams will come true if you see it clear enough. Building Zero Tolerance made me believe in magic 🪄 ✨
@zt.international by @chandel.zt

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“If it’s made in India, why is it so expensive?”

That’s the question a buyer asked me during press day at London Fashion Week. One sentence, and it told me everything about how the world still sees us. For centuries, Indian hands clothed royalty and built the idea of luxury itself. Now we create for ourselves, and suddenly it’s “overpriced.”

We know better. Every piece in Virasat is block printed by hand, woven by karigars whose families have done this work for generations. This isn’t a discount version of Milan. It’s the original.

Pre-orders for Virasat are open now on Zero Tolerance’s official website. Share this, save this because if we don’t defend Indian craftsmanship, who will? by @chandel.zt

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Dear Instagram, please connect me with artists with a spine. by @chandel.zt

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The word “natural” is about to become the new “sustainable.” Useful until it’s hollow.

This is why we’ve never led with sustainability language. We lead with specifics. Handspun, handwoven. Organic cotton sourced directly from artisans in Lucknow and the Hardoi cluster in UP. Hari Shankar Pandey’s block prints pressed with hundred-year-old wooden blocks. No chemical finishing. No pivot because a trend told us to. That’s not a sustainability claim. That’s just the truth of how we work.

ZTINTERNATIONAL.CO by @chandel.zt

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जनहित में जारी 🇮🇳 by @chandel.zt

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8 days ago

This footage is from the British Raj. India, alive, working, making things. Look closely. The fabric on every body in this frame is an economy the British spent a century trying to kill. Video by BFI.

Block printing in Awadh was one of the most refined textile traditions this country had. The wooden blocks weren’t tools. They were archives, motifs and lineages passed hand to hand for generations. When colonial policy gutted Indian textile production, that work didn’t vanish overnight. It went quiet. Into family storage. Waiting for someone to make it viable again.

We didn’t discover Hari Shankar ji. We just made it possible for him to keep working.

His blocks are over a hundred years old. Carved in Farrukhabad, sourced from a royal family’s archive in Pratapgarh. Before Virasat, he’d had to stop, and not for lack of skill. For lack of demand.

Every piece in Virasat carries his name, his blocks, his lineage. That’s not a marketing line. It’s the only way this makes sense. Pre-orders are open. Link in bio.

Save this. Share it. Tag someone who needs to see where their clothes actually come from. Because the lineage doesn’t end on our watch. by @chandel.zt

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I used this framework to reach millions of people. Use it to skyrocket your views on social media. It can be applied to all formats of content. by @chandel.zt

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