Arjun Khanna launches AKOG, handcrafted denim meets vintage workwear
AKOG debuted 120 one-of-one denim pieces in Mumbai, using deadstock selvedge, military fabric and Boro detailing to turn workwear into luxury.
Scarcity is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in Arjun Khanna’s new denim proposition. AKOG opened with a Lot 1 drop of just 120 one-of-one pieces, each built in Mumbai from deadstock selvedge denim, vintage military fabrics and handwork that pushes workwear squarely into luxury territory. The standout pieces were the kind collectors clock immediately: six-layer Boro jackets and denim fiber-fused vests, garments that wear their construction on the surface and make craft the main event.
Khanna has framed AKOG as the artisanal soul of his atelier, a label rooted in the company he established in 1989. That matters because the business is not being presented as a side project or a logo-driven capsule. It sits inside an extensive production facility in Mumbai with in-house tailoring, embroidery and finishing, which gives the brand a rare kind of control at a moment when many labels are outsourcing the most visible parts of their luxury message. With AKOG, the value proposition is not just denim; it is the labor, the handwork and the fact that every piece is singular.
The materials tell the rest of the story. AKOG draws on Japanese selvedge denim, Indian kantha, intricate hand embroidery, Sashiko stitching and Boro patchwork, all of it handmade in India by master artisans. Khanna said he has spent 40 years studying denim’s origins in Italy and France, its adoption in the American West and its reinvention in Japan, while his private archive now holds more than 300 vintage pieces. In a February 2026 interview, he said his menswear work was shaped by Japanese symbolism and by his love of vintage and biker culture, a combination that explains why AKOG feels more studious than nostalgic. It is not costume workwear. It is workwear translated through a collector’s eye.
That positioning also lands neatly inside the current denim market, where workwear, quiet luxury and heritage references have become the language of premium denim. Bombay Shirt Company has already tested the appetite for limited-edition denim through an exclusive collaboration with Khanna that included 12 ready-to-wear shirts, while Re/Done helped prove that reconstructed denim could live comfortably in the luxury conversation. AKOG goes further by making the one-off format the point, with select global retail partners and a later flagship boutique in Mumbai set to extend the idea. The question now is whether artisanal denim can scale beyond story and remain a serious high-end business. For AKOG, that tension is the whole appeal.
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