Concept development: fabric research, initial symbol studies and the evolution of the final visual language.
Review by Rhiannon D’Averc, Editor in Chief, London Runway. August 26, 2026
An independent editorial review of the Astro-Ga collection by Anusha Bikumala, Creative Director and Founder, Stylehive
Astro-Ga, the latest collection from Anusha Bikumala, Creative Director and Founder of the independent fashion label Stylehive, investigates how embodied movement, astrological mark-making and textile experimentation can be translated into a contemporary clothing system. Rather than treating yoga as a visual motif, the project uses the body in motion as a design method connecting gesture, surface, silhouette and material.
A collection built from a visual language
Astro-Ga begins with an act of translation. Its source material is not a conventional seasonal theme, but a meeting point between yoga philosophy, astrological symbolism and the physical intelligence of the body. The design process asks how ideas such as balance, alignment, rhythm and energy might be communicated without becoming literal costume or decorative quotation.
The development boards reveal a deliberately iterative method. Hand-drawn signs are tested, reduced, repeated and reorganised before they move onto cloth. Early sketches retain the irregularity of the hand; later compositions become more spatial and graphic. This progression matters because the symbols are not simply placed on garments as logos. They are allowed to fragment, overlap and disperse, creating surfaces that feel discovered rather than mechanically imposed.
Material choices reinforce that approach. Cotton-based fabrics and stretch components create a dialogue between ease and structure, while the pale ground of the collection acts as a field for rust-orange, mineral grey, soft peach and violet marks. The result is a restrained palette with enough contrast to register movement while remaining connected to natural, tactile materiality.
Five coordinated looks demonstrate how a shared graphic vocabulary can shift across proportion, layering and colour.
From mark-making to garment
Across the five looks, the collection develops a coherent system rather than a sequence of isolated outfits. Wide-leg trousers establish a recurring base silhouette, but each look changes the relationship between print, transparency, layering and the torso. A cropped top paired with densely marked trousers feels direct and active; a white sleeveless top with grey patterning shifts the emphasis downward; longer orange and cream layers introduce movement around the body; and the violet variation expands the palette without breaking the collection’s identity.
This consistency is one of Astro-Ga’s strongest qualities. The garments share a recognisable design grammar, yet they avoid uniformity. Repetition becomes a tool for authorship: similar forms are revisited with altered scale, colour and density, allowing the viewer to read the collection as an evolving proposition.
The body is part of the design process
The collection photographed in movement: garments are tested visually through extension, weight shift and changing silhouette.
The outdoor movement studies make the conceptual premise tangible. In these images, the garments are not treated as static display objects. Their volume, transparency and printed surfaces are activated by posture. As the body bends, extends and redistributes weight, the cloth changes its geometry; the printed marks stretch across folds, disappear into shadow and re-emerge along new planes.
That relationship gives the project a useful distinction from fashion that merely borrows the visual vocabulary of wellness. Here, yoga functions as a way of thinking about clothing on an active body. The pose becomes a test of proportion and drape, and the garment becomes a record of movement. This creates a more integrated conversation between concept and construction.
Craft, restraint and contemporary expression
A layered look brings the collection’s rust-orange mark-making into a more editorial, fashion-led silhouette.
The strongest editorial image in the series shows how Astro-Ga can move beyond its research origins into a resolved fashion proposition. The sheer outer layer softens the graphic surface beneath it, while the warm orange print remains visible through overlapping planes of fabric. This creates depth without excessive embellishment. The effect is contemporary because the symbolism is embedded within the textile language rather than presented as a theatrical reference.
There is also a productive tension between control and irregularity. The silhouettes are clean and legible, while the surface marks retain the spontaneity of drawing and experimental print. That balance gives the work character: the collection can be read from a distance through shape and colour, then encountered more closely through texture, line and detail.
A practice-led approach to sustainable thinking
Astro-Ga’s most credible sustainability argument is found in its design method rather than in unsupported claims of impact. The project foregrounds material awareness, repeated development, coordinated separates and a visual system that can extend across multiple garments. Such an approach encourages longevity at the level of design language: pieces are conceived as related components rather than disposable, trend-specific statements.
For contemporary textile practice, this is significant. Sustainability is strongest when it influences the decisions that shape a collection — how materials are selected, how many visual ideas are introduced, how garments relate to one another and whether a concept can evolve without constant reinvention. Astro-Ga points toward that kind of disciplined authorship.
Why Astro-Ga matters
What gives Astro-Ga its particular identity is that it does not treat astrology and yoga as two decorative themes placed alongside one another. The collection begins from the relationship between inner balance and cosmic influence — asking how systems traditionally used to understand the self, the body and its place within a wider universe might be translated into contemporary textile and fashion design.
Its starting point is the twelve zodiac signs and the distinct energies, elemental associations and personality characteristics traditionally connected with them. Bikumala does not reproduce these signs literally. Instead, astrological symbols, planetary movement, orbital forms and circular zodiac structures are reduced through drawing and mark-making into a new graphic vocabulary. Individual identities remain present within the collection, but they are brought together through a unified system of line, colour, repetition and form.
The collection’s relevance also lies in the way it approaches wellbeing without reducing fashion to conventional activewear or wellness imagery. Astro-Ga proposes a broader idea of clothing as an interface between physical experience, personal identity and emotional or spiritual awareness. Its flowing forms, coordinated separates and recurring symbolic language create a clothing system intended to support movement while retaining an individual visual character.
It is worth noting that the collection attracted the formal backing of Kaumudi Studio, led by Dr Sharmila Nagraj Nandula — a founding faculty member at the National Institute of Fashion Technology with over thirty years of experience in sustainable textile design. That institutional endorsement, made on the basis of the collection’s conceptual depth and material intelligence, speaks to the seriousness with which the work has been received within the professional fashion and textile community.
For Anusha Bikumala, the project also articulates a clear creative direction: textile-led fashion in which concept is carried through material, surface and movement. The work is strongest when seen as a developing practice rather than a single finished collection — one capable of expanding into further textile research, collaborative making, exhibitions, workshops and new fashion outcomes.
In that sense, Astro-Ga is less a closed statement than a framework. It proposes that clothing can hold ideas through the way it moves, the way it is marked and the way it is experienced on the body. Its quiet strength lies in that integration:
“Philosophy becomes gesture, gesture becomes line, line becomes textile, and textile returns to the moving body.”
About the Designer
Anusha Bikumala is a fashion and textile designer and the Creative Director and Founder of Stylehive, a concept-led independent fashion label founded in 2021. Her practice is built around sustainable design, handcrafted textile processes, and narrative-driven collection development, drawing from cultural heritage, craft traditions, and contemporary design thinking.
Her collections include Astro-Ga — a sustainable yoga-wear concept translating astrological symbolism into handcrafted textile design, formally backed by Kaumudi Studio; Neo-Nomads — an exploration of nomadic and tribal visual traditions through handloom block-print development, featured in Face Magazine India, London Runway, and Moevir Paris (2026); and Abhushan — a collection translating Indian jewellery heritage into contemporary textile surfaces and garment construction.
Anusha was invited to serve as a Jury Member at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Hyderabad — India’s premier statutory fashion institution in 2023, assessing graduating fashion design collections alongside senior industry professionals. She appeared as an invited design and textile expert on DD Yadagiri, a Doordarshan national broadcast channel, in October 2023 and August 2025. She has been a featured expert trainer at the NIFT Sankalp Artisan Awareness Programme across three consecutive editions (2021, 2022, 2023).
She is currently developing Stylehive’s editorial and commercial presence within the UK fashion industry, building relationships with UK publications, independent boutiques, and creative organisations whose commitment to sustainable, craft-rooted design aligns with her practice. The British fashion industry’s engagement with independent design and material innovation makes it the natural next environment for Stylehive’s development.
Instagram: @anusha_bikumala | @stylehive2020
