In the finest spaces, what separates a room that truly endures from one that simply ages is often something you cannot see, cannot touch, and will almost certainly never think about. Varun Mukhi, the founder of Vetro Power, an Indian nanotechnology company, has built his entire practice around exactly that invisible idea.
Ask anyone who works seriously in luxury interiors what the most overlooked element of a premium space is, and the conversation will drift toward materials, craftsmanship, light, and proportion. The most important decision in any space is often made long after the designer has left and the photos have been taken.
Mukhi grew up in a family connected to both the textile and chemical industries, and that gave him an early, particular curiosity about how materials behave over time. Not how they look when they are new, but what happens to them as the years quietly accumulate. When he began working closely on interiors and hospitality projects, he kept running into the same frustration. The design would be considered and precise. The materials were chosen with genuine intelligence. And then, as he puts it plainly, daily life would take over. Premium projects across Mumbai and Delhi would begin showing their age within months of completion. High footfall, humidity, food spills, and harsh cleaning chemicals steadily damage floors, despite careful specification, unless protection is considered at the right moment, which is rare.
The gap between aesthetic intent and long-term performance is precisely where his work lives. Through Vetro Power’s Nano-Tech Services division, he applies nanotechnology-based protection systems to some of the most demanding surfaces in the country, from the upholstered suites of five-star hospitality groups to the fabric wall panels of cultural institutions to the stone and silk and hand-knotted carpets of private residences where the investment in material is significant and the tolerance for wear is essentially zero. The argument he makes, quietly and without drama, is that protection is not an add-on. It is part of the space’s life cycle. If you care about design, you have to care about durability. Reactive care, he says, is always more expensive and more painful than protection that was planned from the very beginning.
Before Mukhi recommends any treatment for any surface, he proceeds by understanding the material science first. How porous is the surface? How does it react to moisture? What cleaning procedures are being followed? Then he studies usage patterns closely. Is it a hotel lobby sofa used by hundreds of guests daily or a private home with light and careful use? He also reviews existing maintenance habits, because aggressive cleaning often causes more damage than the spills it was meant to address. Only after evaluating all of these factors does he recommend a system. It must work in real life, he says, not just in theory. This diagnostic rigor is what separates a genuinely useful protective treatment from the kind of product that performs beautifully in a laboratory and fails quietly in an actual room.
The technology itself operates at a level invisible to any unaided eye. Rather than forming a film on the surface of a material, which is how older protective coatings worked and why they were rightly distrusted by anyone who cared about how fabric actually feels, the treatment bonds at the nanoscale and alters the relationship between the surface and whatever comes into contact with it. In the case of fabric, nothing changes in any perceptible sense. Linen still breathes. Wool remains soft. Leather ages as it should. Silk retains its particular quality of light and drape. There is no change in texture, color, or odor. What changes is performance. Liquids form higher wetting angles and bead away rather than penetrate. Thicker substances that would otherwise stain permanently can often be lifted with neutral cleaners when the surface is properly protected. Mukhi calls it invisible performance enhancement, and there is no more precise way to put it.
The misconceptions that surround this category of work are worth addressing directly, because they have for years prevented the conversation from happening at the right stage of any project. Many people assume that coatings will make fabrics stiff, glossy, or synthetic in feel. That was true of older technologies. Modern nanotechnology systems are designed to remain entirely invisible. Another misconception, perhaps the more consequential one, is that protection eliminates the need for cleaning. It does not. This approach makes cleaning less aggressive and more efficient, which is an important consideration for the long-term care of fine interiors. The industry is also largely unregulated, meaning anyone can make bold claims about being nano or non-toxic. Clients need to look for credibility, ask for real test results, global certifications, and a genuine track record.
Natural materials occupy a special place in this conversation because they are both the most prized surfaces in any luxury context and the most vulnerable ones. Natural materials require respect, as Mukhi frames it. The treatment must not block breathability or alter texture. Linen should still breathe, wool should remain soft, and leather should age naturally and beautifully. Some materials respond extremely well and show strong repellency, while others behave with more complexity. Deep knowledge of materials and years of experience across premium surfaces build the trust that underpins his practice.
Mukhi understands the distinction between hospitality and private residential work intimately, having operated in both fields for years. Hospitality functions at scale and under constant pressure. Spaces are in use every single day, and brand perception depends entirely on consistency. There is very little margin for visible wear. In busy settings, even small improvements in surface resistance can greatly extend the lifecycle of interiors, reducing replacement frequency, operational downtime, and long-term maintenance expenses. Protection systems reduce the absorption of spills and contaminants, which allows housekeeping teams to clean surfaces more gently and efficiently, reducing fiber stress and surface wear over time. In private homes, usage is lighter, but expectations are deeply personal. The investment is often more significant, and the attachment to the original condition of the space runs far deeper. Budget sensitivity is real in hospitality because protection is invisible and its value is realized over time rather than immediately, and that trust, Mukhi says, has been built purely through performance.
The broader conversation around protective chemistry has grown considerably more sophisticated recently, partly because clients have grown more sophisticated alongside it. After the pandemic, clients started asking detailed questions about toxicity, fumes, indoor air quality, and long-term exposure—previously unusual concerns—while today, safety and compliance are of equal importance. Today, safety and compliance carry equal weight. Greater access to information has made stakeholders more aware and more demanding, and this shift is a positive development.
What most people miss when they think about surface protection is that stain resistance is the most visible benefit but far from the most significant one across a space’s longer life. Protection also helps preserve color consistency, slows fiber degradation, offers some UV resistance in certain applications, and reduces the need for harsh cleaning chemicals. Over time, that translates into less material damage, lower maintenance intensity, and better overall surface aging. A space designed to remain beautiful a decade later requires this mindset, but most are built differently, leading to unexpected aging.
Mukhi believes that architects and designers can do their jobs better by treating protection as part of the material strategy instead of adding it as a separate chemical layer at the end. During design discussions, consider how the material will actually perform over five to ten years. When protection is integrated early, it supports the design quietly without ever interfering with aesthetics. Ideally it enters the conversation at the specification stage, included in the bill of quantities like any other technical element. When protection is built in during material selection, it remains effortless and invisible. When added later, it becomes reactive and harder to integrate well. Early planning ensures the design intent is preserved without compromise.
The future he describes is one where this kind of thinking becomes standard rather than exceptional. Brands have already begun launching pre-treated fabrics and tiles with built-in performance features. As sustainability and longevity become more central to how the design world measures its own success, extending the life of materials will matter far more than the frequency of their replacement. Functional performance will increasingly become a genuine selling point within design itself. Pollution, humidity, and heavy use all affect surfaces in India in ways that designers from other climates and traditions do not always fully account for. Architects and designers create spaces people connect with emotionally. In this context, the role of material science is to create conditions that allow this connection to endure quietly and without announcement, remaining invisible for the years that follow the opening.
The room that holds its character across a decade, that looks in its fifth year the way it looked in its first, that maintains the emotional connection it was designed to create long after the people who specified it have moved on to other projects, is the room that understood these principles. Not the expense of the materials. Not the reputation of the designer. But the quality of the decision to build something lasting and the intelligence to protect it once made.
