Featured

Turning 15 in rebellion: The Freedom Tree story

Freedom Tree commemorates a decade and a half of journey of creating decor that stands the test of time

14 Jul 2025

In 2009, when Freedom Tree swung wide its embrace to the Indian design scene, it found a landscape split between the heavy traditional motifs that felt outdated and generic imports. Fifteen years later, this Mumbai-based brand has carved out something compelling — a contemporary Indian aesthetic that’s both globally relevant and deeply rooted.

ELLE DECOR India speaks to Latika Khosla, CEO of Freedom Tree, about their journey designing, creating and spreading joy for 15 rebellious years and what lies ahead.

What was the design landscape in India like when Freedom Tree launched and what gap did you feel compelled to fill?

In the late 2000s, Millennial India was exciting, open and filled with optimism. FT just filled a niche gap between a more traditional ethnic aesthetic produced locally and mass-produced, heavily imported alternatives. We were bold, bright and contemporary Indian, ready to push the design envelope for the confident, evolved Indian ready to embrace colour and express themselves with joy. Our storytelling is filled with our love for local craft and contemporary takes on traditional Indian art and culture. We will always be a quiet rebellion of sorts, a rebellion against the mundane and the staid.

How do you reframe India’s modernity through your collections without leaning into clichés?

We find India romantic, but not in the typical cliches. We are storytellers; nothing is as obvious as it seems. We prefer to unpeel old cultural traditions and history, choosing to veer away from the beauty of Mughal art and architecture, the buttis and paisleys and the palace inspiration that the world associates India with. We found so much inspiration down South, in the lost kingdoms of the Chola Dynasty, in Adivasi folk traditions and in our cities, particularly Bombay, where our studio is based. We unpeel the layers behind traditions and practices to create new interpretations textured with modern life.

How do personal experiences shape your visual storytelling?

Everything stems from personal experience and memory; all art, all design, all creative work come from somewhere there. Earliest memories are purest and take us back to innocence and moments of joy. This is where we find inspiration, the ability to translate memories into something tangible, from the colours of a glorious sunset to the vastness of the mountains, the memories of music that haunt us.

You work across furniture, textiles, ceramics and more. How do you maintain a cohesive design identity across such varied media?

Every product, whether it’s a sofa, a cushion, or a coffee mug, is part of a larger story. While materials and functions may vary, the soul of the design always comes from the same place: a bold, joyful and distinctly Indian point of view.
What ties everything together is our design language — playful prints, unexpected colour combinations and a love for everyday beauty. It’s not about everything being “matching-matching”, it’s about everything belonging.

How do you balance the artistic instinct with the commercial need for scalability and repeatability? Where do you compromise and where do you never go?

Balancing artistic instinct with commercial reality is a constant, conscious dance and one we’ve learned to embrace over the years. The artistic side is where we begin: with bold ideas, free-flowing sketches, playful experiments with colour and form. But we also know that for design to reach more homes, it needs to be practical, scalable and repeatable. So, we look for ways to translate that creative energy into pieces that are both expressive and functional.
Where do we compromise? Sometimes it’s the complexity of a design. We might simplify the print, so it works better across multiple materials or adapt a shape to make it more production-friendly. We’re okay with making those changes if the soul of the piece stays intact.
Where do we never compromise? In the spirit of the design. On joy, originality, and emotional connection, we hope people feel when they live with our products.

Who is the Freedom Tree customer and how has your relationship with your audience influenced the brand’s journey?

Our customers are curious, evolved and fearless when it comes to self-expression in the home. They wander at will within our stores to discover for themselves. They love choices; they create their own space. They will relentlessly seek us out to tell us how they love something we have made, or how we might improve on something, make it better and how they expect so much more from us.

As you look ahead, what excites you most about the next chapter for Freedom Tree? What are the new spaces, ideas, or global stories that you want to explore?

As we celebrate 15 years as a design brand this year, it is important for us to stay relevant with the new generation who is so savvy and constantly online. They are used to speed and everything at their fingertips, the latest trends and designs, fashions and news. We are on our toes designing for the rising new gen Zs and their swag.
We want to be relevant to the global customer, the discerning homemaker with good taste and an appreciation for bold decisions and play, craftsmanship and vivid colour and print aesthetic.
What excites us most about the next chapter is the opportunity to keep evolving while staying rooted in what we believe should be joyful, expressive and grounded in everyday life. The future is open and waiting for us to paint with colours and new moods, new memories waiting to be made and many new homes that Freedom Tree wants to fill with stories.

Explore more of Freedom Tree here