Yeh kissi ko marne ke liye hai?’ the head of the family, Mahesh ji (Atal), asked me and winked as he held up the leather paddle,” Randhir Pratap Singh tells us over a video-call from Jaipur, “When I make a leather bralette or bustier, the lady of the house tries it on. The younger members follow me on Instagram and know what the products are for. It’s a typical Indian family—everyone knows everything, but no one talks about it.”

Singh is talking about his brand, Subculture, the first in the country to make leather fetish wear, associated with the kink lifestyle. The manufacturing headquarters are in Kanpur and in Udaypuria—a village 50 kms away from Jaipur—helmed by a family of artisans who would traditionally craft juttis and leather-bound diaries. “The family has been working with leather for generations, and we’re almost like family,” says the designer who lives between Goa, Jaipur, and his family home in Lucknow. “I’ve watched them expand their home, build more pukka roofs after sales have grown, and enlist more family members in the unit. In Kanpur, on the other hand, it’s a factory line-like impersonal production of paddles, whips and hunters—they slap things on and move on.”