In the Gully Lab

Streetwear echoes! Melange Studio designs a flagship store in New Delhi

16 Dec 2025

When designing an avant-garde shoe store, a larger-than-life and highly detailed sneaker suspended directly above the entry is par for the course. Gully Labs, a deeply desi streetwear brand, enlisted the help of The Melange Studio to conceptualise their first in-store experience. Sitting in New Delhi’s Panchsheel Park, the space is a culmination of community spaces, coffee corners and visual journeys into the spirit of Indian street style. “The store is not merely a place to shop but a spatial narrative, where every material, texture, and gesture brings the energy of the gullies into a contemporary context,” Dhruv DV and Pranvi Jain, co-founders of The Melange Studio.

Working with over 50 karigars, the store pays homage to craftsmanship and scripts a resonant narrative for Indian skill and community. Making local material choices and creating designs that evoke the nostalgia of the quintessential galli of the subcontinent. A winding street full of movement, people, children and energy, a galli signifies vitality and an inherent connection to the Indian root. A source of inspiration and invention, just as the shoes of the brand reverberate with cultural context, so does the new flagship store.

“Every element is layered with meaning, creating a spatial narrative that blurs the line between retail, culture and community”

- Melange Studio

A customisation island allows every shoe to be truly personalised; Photography by Avesh Gaur

Designs of desi descent

An inspired take on the Indian jaali doors, the store displays its rows of shoes on a cement brick layout that features even spaces between them, a twist on the common screen doors featured in most Indian homes. Throughout the store, elements of culturally relevant designs can be seen, whether in the pointed arches for corridor thresholds or a red park bench of cement; the space seems to envelop you within the folds of the country. The very core of the store draws from materials that coexist amongst us daily, a prime example being the old railway beams running overhead, between those, the cement finish walls and handmade tiles, the store forms a moody yet quotidian environment. Each part of the store induces a sentimentality of the known, be it the central metallic silver seating or the shoelace designs within the front door. While a reserved overall palette of black and white allows what it holds within to shine through.

A custom shoelace design using ropes weaves within the wooden front door; Photography by Avesh Gaur

A bold beginning, the brand's colours are displayed front and centre; Photography by Avesh Gaur

More than a store

Gully Labs signals a rise in the Indian landscape for products that echo within the native youth. Becoming more than a shoemaker, Gully Labs, with this unique flagship store, becomes a custodian for the history entrenched within Indian bylanes. The store houses a ‘Baithak’, an amphitheatre-style seating that allows for a community space to host concert gigs, pop-ups and collaborative events. A multipurpose space, it allows guests to browse with ease while also encouraging conversations and interaction. A vibrant energy flows throughout, with elements that not only decorate but actively engage with those within, mirrors, thoughtfully designed selfie points, and a live show crafting area accentuates this intent. Melange Studio imagines the store as more than a retail stop and instead becomes an experiential manifestation of youth and community.

Morphing and shapeshifting this flagship store, dons many feathers in its cap, scripting a story within the store that’s both relevant while also rooted in history.