At his modest Juhu apartment, Nikhil D is busy converting failures into winners. A pero dress by Aneeth Arora that has failed a quality check (QC) on account of a stain is re-imagined by deconstructing it into a dress and a short jacket. And in this manner, the 31-year-old is quietly tackling global concerns of textile waste, with a collection of 50-odd garments created entirely from leftover fabrics and failed QC items sourced from Rina Singh of Eka, Ruchika Sachdeva of Bodice, Gaurav Jai Gupta of Akaaro, Nimish Shah and Arora.

It was back in February last year that Nikhil wrote to this group, whose work he personally relates to, to donate leftover fabrics and garments for Nikhil D Deconstructed, his clothing line. The idea holding the sartorial project together was a season-less, occasion-less, gender-free range of sleepwear-inspired clothing in shapes of short-sleeved, flat-collared shirts, PJs, throws, shorts, shirt jackets and dresses. Inspired by his favourite children's picture book, Bambi, the collection, he thought, would reimagine abstract wildlife collages on clothes. For instance, raglan sleeves would offer the illusion of an owl's wings spread out. "We have come a long way from the initial reference," he laughs, "I was really going for theme and concept... what I didn't take into account was that I would be working with something that was given to me, as opposed to things I had personally picked."