Color Coded Crime is a design label rooted in archival craft, sustainability, and South Asian heritage. Our work moves between past and present, drawing from endangered embroidery traditions and contemporary cultural dialogues. Each garment is both artefact and proposition made to be worn, studied, and remembered.

Our embroideries revive Mughal-era practices such as Aari / Nakshi, Zardozi, Resham work and Salma, techniques now preserved by only a handful of artisans. We refuse mechanization: not a single stitch is done by machine. By doing so, we safeguard the livelihoods of artisans, ensuring that centuries of hand skill are not abandoned to speed or convenience.

Every fabric we use is locally sourced, grounding our practice in the communities and materials of South Asia. Our work is built on restraint: limited runs, repair over disposal, waste repurposed into archival samples, and ethical, long-term collaborations with artisans.

Color Coded Crime resists the borders that divided South Asia. We weave together influences from Gujarat, Kashmir, Bengal, Balochistan, Punjab, and the Deccan, treating heritage as a shared and living archive. Our garments become sites of connection across geographies, across generations.

We exist so artisans do not become relics. So heritage is not fossilized. So each garment can carry both memory and possibility.