Couturier Payal Jain on translating a 350-year-old Bundela palace into staff uniforms built to be felt, not photographed.
The Oberoi Rajgarh Palace, Khajuraho, is a restored 350-year-old fortress originally built by Maharaja Hindu Pat of the Bundela dynasty, set atop the Maniyagarh Hills above a rain-fed lake. Its transformation into a 65-room luxury resort took nearly a decade of restoration led by historians, conservation architects, and craftsmen, work that earned it a place on TIME magazine’s World’s Greatest Places 2026 list. Couturier Payal Jain was commissioned to design the property’s staff uniforms, a collection built to carry the weight of that history while remaining, by design, unremarkable enough to disappear into everyday wear.
Jain has spent nearly three decades building uniform identities for over 300 hospitality institutions worldwide, Four Seasons, Taj, The Leela Palaces, Aman, Rosewood, and Hyatt among them. Her relationship with The Oberoi Group dates back to the 2018 reopening of The Oberoi, New Delhi, and a working relationship with Chairman P.R.S. Oberoi that shaped her understanding of the brand’s grammar: understated, precise, never loud. Rajgarh gave her the most historically loaded canvas of her career. Robb Report India spoke with Jain about what survived that history, and what she chose to leave out.
Robb Report India (RR): Where did you actually begin? Was there a single detail that unlocked the whole collection?
Payal Jain (PJ): My relationship with the Oberoi group goes back to our collaboration for the reopening of The Oberoi, New Delhi in 2018. Working with Mr. P.R.S. Oberoi has given me a deep appreciation for the group’s approach to hospitality, the highest standard of service, and a sense of place married to understated, timeless elegance. That became the foundation for Rajgarh’s design aesthetic. When I first visited, I was deeply moved by how the property holds the history of Bundelkhand. The architecture, frescoes, hand-painted details, and the landscape all seem to belong to a larger storyline. I wanted to spend time absorbing the atmosphere rather than beginning with a single idea, and let the design language evolve from the palace itself.
What captivated me was the first sight of the palace set atop the mountain, against the hills. There was something powerful about its presence, the way the architecture blended into the landscape, carrying stories of past dynasties. I began looking closely at the colours, proportions, architectural elements, and craft traditions of the region, wanting to interpret these through a contemporary lens so their essence could find its way into the textiles and silhouettes. For me, the collection is about preserving Bundelkhand’s grandeur while giving it new, contemporary treatment, married to the classical luxury of the Oberoi hotels.
RR: You’ve translated the rhythm of the palace domes into embroidery. How does an architectural silhouette become a textile motif without feeling literal?
PJ: Architecture has always been a source of inspiration in my textiles. At Rajgarh, the domes, arches, and repetitive articulations of form fascinated me, giving the building a lyrical sense of rhythm. My team and I spent hours studying the proportions, sketching variations of the dome, before they became a key inspiration for the prints and the foundation for the embroidery. Their layered rhythm was abstracted into softer, fluid motifs that moved across textiles through monochromatic resham embroidery on collars, cuffs, and hemlines. The long capes and fitted Bundis carried this language in grander proportions, layered over ivory panelled tunics.
The palette, ivory, muted gold, sandstone beige, is drawn directly from the palace. These tones let the embroideries stay understated. The references reveal themselves gradually, through a print, a line, a motif, rather than announcing themselves. This restraint is very much in sync with the Oberoi philosophy of understated luxury.
RR: A uniform has to survive twelve-hour shifts and repetition. How did you balance that against the romance of royal Bundela dressing?
PJ: That balance sits at the heart of every hospitality project. The comfort of the team member and the functionality of their attire is inseparable from the guest experience. We drew inspiration from Bundela royal attire, the layering, the grace, but every element was reinterpreted through a contemporary lens. Fabrics were chosen for comfort, breathability, and ease of movement. The silhouettes retain the sense of occasion of royal dressing while remaining practical for long working hours and easy upkeep. These uniforms accompany the team every day, and the romance of the history stays present without becoming impractical or purely decorative.
RR: Menswear and womenswear both nod to princely attire. Was there a moment you held back because a design read as too theatrical for a working uniform?
PJ: Working within a 350-year-old palace, there is a natural temptation to lean further into ceremonial dressing. But comfort and practicality had to prevail. We explored many historical influences from Bundela costumes and consciously used them with restraint. The intention was never to recreate historical costume, only to reinterpret it for modern hospitality professionals. We retained the elegance of royal dressing through bandhgalas with crest buttons, structured Bundis, and panelled kurtas, while staying mindful of proportion. That balance reflects the Oberoi philosophy of understated luxury, refinement without ever feeling overstated.
RR: These uniforms become the first, most constant “face” of the property. How is that job different from a garment meant to be photographed once?
PJ: Fashion and corporate design sit at nearly opposite ends of the same discipline. Fashion focuses on aesthetic and construction. Corporate hospitality demands beauty too, but grounded in restraint and functionality, designed for every body type, climate, and culture. I think about the story the brand needs to tell, but equally about how the uniform should make people feel, trust, warmth, professionalism. It should support the interaction, never become its focus. I never look at a uniform in isolation. It has to belong to the property’s architecture, landscape, and craft as much as its people do. The greatest success is when a uniform becomes so much a part of the environment that you stop noticing it separately, when it simply becomes part of the memory of the place.
