Dhruv Kapoor’s new hybrid Mary Jane shoes are for everyone

Think backmost to what you wore to school. Crisp shirts, starched pinafores, agleam achromatic socks, and of course, a brace of smart, shiny achromatic Mary Jane shoes. The footwear carries unmistakable girlhood nostalgia, and implicit the past fewer years, has made a noticeable instrumentality to everyone’s closets; successful a spectrum of colours, bolder prints and with shinier buckles. 

A limited-edition merchandise collaboration betwixt Johnnie Walker Blonde Non-Alcoholic Lemonade and New Delhi-based decorator Dhruv Kapoor present has Mary Janes instrumentality the spotlight, with the imaginativeness of celebrating idiosyncratic benignant and self-expression. 

“For me, moving connected the collaboration was astir state of look and progress. That is however we enactment connected plan arsenic a marque arsenic well,” says Dhruv, of their shared beliefs.  

This clip around, the Mary Janes are not conscionable for the girls. Made of handcrafted leather successful bluish with a popular of yellowish connected the insoles, the hybrid shoes are a reflection of Dhruv’s plan language, which champions modern dressing, androgynous silhouettes and gender-fluid dressing.  

“Mary Janes were traditionally associated oregon rigid towards being a feminine shoe. And that’s a representation oregon a familiarity that we each retrieve from schoolhouse due to the fact that I retrieve each miss successful people had Mary Janes which was a portion of the uniform. I wanted to prime up thing that has that rigid relation and reperceive it,” Dhruv says. “We picked up the women’s azygous shoe, and the men’s footwear oregon what I wore; a accepted Oxford oregon a brogue, and the collaborative effect was this,” helium adds. 

The shoes travel successful an electrical bluish padded backpack, which comes with colourful detachable charms and enamel pins. “ I did not privation idiosyncratic to conscionable get the shoes and discard the packaging, truthful we thought astir however we tin adhd much worth to the packaging and beforehand prolonged use. We wanted to marque this cooler, younger and a small much ‘everyday’, and the charms and pins are thing the users tin take from the premix we are offering, oregon adjacent usage immoderate of their ain to personalise the bag,” Dhruv says. 

Over the years, Dhruv’s eponymous marque with its modern plan connection that has trailed its absorption connected gender-fluid designs has been worn by a bevy of celebrities including Alia Bhatt, Ranveer Singh, Sonam Kapoor, Karan Johar and more. Sonam was precocious spotted successful a customised achromatic overgarment and skirt co-ord acceptable from the designer, making waves for her maternity fashion. “A afloat ellipse moment.,” Dhruv says, fixed however Sonam took the marque into the spotlight implicit a decennary agone by wearing 1 of his creations. 

2025 had been a momentous twelvemonth for the designer, with the motorboat of Kapoor 2.0, a caller youth-driven expressive reimagining of mundane essentials which went unrecorded connected the brand’s e-commerce platform. Now a regular astatine Milan Fashion Week, Dhruv besides presented his Spring/Summer 2026 Co-ed runway show, Foundations & Futures and 2026 began with the decorator opening his archetypal flagship store successful New Delhi. Conceiving this abstraction and seeing it travel to beingness is thing that has the decorator excited, arsenic helium describes moving connected it astatine length. 

“For maine it was much astir expanding the acquisition of the brand. We person not had a nonstop beingness oregon an acquisition that is straight curated and controlled by the marque earlier this. The flagship store for maine was to stock the values of the brand. Now, these are not truly tangible but my squad and I sat down with the architects to marque this travel through,” Dhruv says. 

The space, helium says, is 1 that is meant to marque you pause. “The marque ever shifts astatine a constituent of national betwixt 2 polar concepts, whether it’s restraint and expression, oregon softness and structure. So the abstraction ideally borrows from these elements, and that’s however it’s built,” helium says. There are rough, earthy marble accents oregon monoliths fused with a seamless level to ceiling micro factual and Dhruv’s obsession with vigor flow; each of which comes unneurotic successful the space. A monolith successful the centre holds affirmations which support changing, a gentle reminder for the customers and perusers who marque their mode astir the store astatine their ain pace. 

“You are escaped to intermission and to spell astatine your ain gait and link with the marque successful whichever format you like. It is astir easing out, and making the full acquisition a calm one. We wanted this to beryllium much almighty than simply buying and selling,” Dhruv says. The curation astatine the store, the decorator says, is of a overmuch wider scope with galore antithetic kinds of textiles and menswear, which customers successful the past lone had entree to done his online store. 

New postulation

At the extremity of the month, Dhruv reveals that a caller postulation is connected its way. “I started reasoning astir it erstwhile I was coming backmost from Milan aft my show. I was waiting to committee the formation and was observing the radical around; however they respond erstwhile you enactment them successful a abstraction of transit oregon a minimal space, however the assemblage connection changes and the beingness of a communal shared connection amongst everybody which is conscionable with expressions,” helium says, of what acceptable disconnected the spark. 

“Somebody is moving to drawback their flight, idiosyncratic with a batch of clip is astatine ease, and different idiosyncratic is surrounded by chaos due to the fact that their kids are with them. These are immoderate characters we person infused into the collection, successful a much refined mode truthful that it looks cohesive,” Dhruv adds. 

We ellipse backmost to Mary Janes; who does Dhruv spot wearing these caller shoes? “Just disconnected my head, Saif Ali Khan. The shoes are comfy and laidback, thing you tin walk your time in. Alia Bhatt is going to emotion it arsenic well. When we were gathering it, it was ne'er gendered oregon adjacent specifically for someone; we ne'er enactment the assemblage into a box,” Dhruv says. 

“If you cognize the idiosyncratic is playful capable to experimentation oregon is wanting to explicit themselves a definite mode escaped of rigidity, they are decidedly going to pounce astatine thing similar this,” helium adds. 

The shoes are priced astatine ₹22,500 and are disposable connected dhruvkapoor.com