Maal

Studio product

Mahal

A clothing line

Client
Mahal
Change
A mark that holds embroidered at 20 millimetres, on a first run of five hoodies
We did
Identity

01The ask

Mahal is our own clothing line, made first for the person making it and sold second.

It started because nothing on the rack was right. Every piece has to pass one question: “would I wear this every day for the next five years?” The first run is five hoodies, costed at $435 to $850 each.

The ask

Mahal is our own clothing line, made first for the person making it and sold second.

Mahal started because nothing on the rack was right. Every piece has to pass one question: “would I wear this every day for the next five years?”

The first run is five hoodies, costed at $435 to $850 each in Australian dollars, September 2026.

A closed palette and one silhouette remove almost every decision a clothing brand gets to make, so the mark has to carry the rest.

The journey

The problem

“I have never seen one.”

A garment is met on a body, across a room, for about a second.

Where the effort goes

The full wardrobe

Declined

Not a pitch to a full wardrobe

Nothing is sold to someone happy with what they own.

Seen on someone

Most of the effort

Be readable at the size it is worn

The fold sits in the silhouette, so the mark holds at 20mm.

Seen on someone

Some of the effort

Set every city to one width

Each name searched along its width axis to one measure.

Checking it out

Some of the effort

Be honest about the cloth and the cost

Embroidery over print, and a price that says why.

02What we did

We drew a mark that holds at the size it is worn, set every city to one width, and chose how it is made.

The mark has to work embroidered on black cloth at 20 millimetres, where most marks fail, so that is where we started. A version that looked better on a poster failed at that size, so it went.

What we did

We drew a mark that holds at the size it is worn, set every city to one width, and chose how it is made.

The mark has to work embroidered on black cloth at 20 millimetres, where most marks fail. So that is where we started.

The pennant carries its fold in the silhouette, not the shading. A version that tinted the far plane looked better on a poster and failed at 20 millimetres, so it went.

The city names run from seven to eleven characters. The setting searches each name’s width axis until every city spans the same measure: København, Chiang Mai, Colombo, Kumamoto, and Montpellier.

Colour on black cloth needs a white underbase, which roughly doubles the setup for every city. So the pennant is embroidered, and the price says what that costs.

We also reversed one decision in writing. The first brand document ruled out a chest wordmark, and that rule is now recorded as wrong.

The only words on the garment are inside it, embroidered in the hood.
Mahal: the heavyweight loopback hoodie, boxy, in black.
Mahal: the line embroidered inside the hood.

The first piece, a boxy loopback hoodie, and the only words on it, inside the hood.

The Mahal pennant in grey relief on a grey ground.

The pennant, carrying its fold in the silhouette.

Studies of the Mahal pennant: one shape in several states, tested at chest size on the garment.
The five city names set at one width: København, Chiang Mai, Colombo, Kumamoto, and Montpellier.

Pennant studies, and the city setting with every name at one width.