Brands
SRK’s shade upgrade as D’YAVOL X unveils first luxury eyewear line
MUMBAI: Trust Shah Rukh Khan to turn a pair of sunglasses into a full-blown cinematic moment even if it means summoning a storm in the middle of a desert. D’YAVOL X, the luxury streetwear label founded by Shah Rukh Khan, Aryan Khan, Leti Blagoeva and Bunty Singh, has stepped into a bold new arena with the launch of its first-ever Luxury Eyewear Collection, an online-exclusive global release that goes live on 30 November 2025.
To announce the leap from couture streetwear to crafted eyewear, the brand has rolled out a striking campaign titled “Step Into The Light,” a moody, atmospheric film set against sculptural desert dunes, shot with the brand’s trademark flair for scale, shadow and cinematic swagger.
The film opens with sweeping aerial shots of sunburnt sandscapes before SRK strides into frame, carrying the calm intensity that has long defined his screen presence. As the winds shift, the dunes tremble, revealing a hidden frame buried beneath the desert. In a slow, deliberate gesture, he retrieves it, studies its edges, and slips it on cue a cooling shadow gliding across the desert as the camera pulls back to reveal a monumental installation of the D’YAVOL X sunglasses towering over the dunes.
“Eyewear has always been more than a style statement for me, it’s how I see the world, and how the world sees me,” Shah Rukh Khan said, reflecting on the brand’s newest chapter. Calling the collection’s journey from sketches to sculpted form “deeply creative” and “incredibly fulfilling”, he spotlighted how personal the project has been for him.
The idea sparked from SRK’s decades-long love affair with sunglasses, a signature that has become near-mythic in Indian pop culture. For the D’YAVOL X team, that spark ignited a full-scale design exercise rooted in precision engineering, premium materials, architectural lines and enduring comfort.
Aryan Khan, who helmed the campaign concept, described the film as a visual metaphor for the brand’s ethos, “We wanted something that captured creative scale, precision, and a touch of irreverence. The desert felt perfect, vast, unforgiving, yet a place where the brand could stand taller than the landscape itself.”
With this launch, D’YAVOL X expands its footprint in India’s evolving luxury market while doubling down on its aesthetic of brooding minimalism, tactile craftsmanship and cinematic identity. The campaign not only teases the eyewear collection but also reinforces the cultural mythology of SRK’s iconic silhouette where a pair of sunglasses becomes both armour and artefact.
Bold, sculptural and unapologetically dramatic, D’YAVOL X’s new eyewear chapter proves one thing, when the King steps into the light, even the desert knows to make way.
Brands
Dunkin’ Donuts to exit India as Jubilant FoodWorks ends 15-year franchise deal
The quick service restaurant giant is ending a 15-year franchise partnership with the American doughnut chain, even as it renews its Domino’s agreement for another 15 years
NOIDA: Dunkin’ is done in India. Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd, the country’s leading quick service restaurant operator, has decided not to renew its franchise agreement with the American coffee and doughnut chain, and will wind down its Indian stores in a phased manner before December 31, 2026, bringing a 15-year partnership to a quiet, loss-laden close.
The decision, approved by JFL’s board on March 30, 2026, ends a relationship that began with a Multiple Unit Development Franchise Agreement signed on February 24, 2011. JFL will now evaluate and undertake what it described in a regulatory filing as the “rationalisation and/or cessation of certain operations and/or sale, transfer or disposal of assets and/or assignment or transfer of franchise rights,” all in consultation with Dunkin’s brand owners and strictly within the terms of the original agreement.
The numbers tell the story bluntly. In the financial year 2024-25, Dunkin’ India posted a revenue of Rs 37 crore against a loss of Rs 19 crore — a haemorrhage that was always going to test the patience of a parent company recording revenues of Rs 6,104 crore and a profit of Rs 194 crore in the same period. Doughnuts, it turns out, were never going to move the needle.
The contrast with JFL’s handling of its other marquee franchise could hardly be sharper. Even as it walks away from Dunkin’, the company has just doubled down on Domino’s, signing a fresh Master Franchise Agreement on March 31, 2026, granting it exclusive rights to develop and operate Domino’s Pizza stores in India for 15 years, with an option to renew for a further 10.
JFL, incorporated in 1995 and promoted by the Bharatia family, operates a network of more than 3,500 stores across six markets — India, Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Its portfolio includes Domino’s and Popeyes on the global side, and two home-grown brands: Hong’s Kitchen and COFFY, a café brand in Turkey.
For Dunkin’, India was always a stretch. The brand never quite cracked the cultural code in a market where filter coffee and chai command fierce loyalty and where the doughnut remains, at best, an occasional indulgence rather than a daily habit. Fifteen years, mounting losses and a parent with better things to spend its capital on was always going to be a difficult equation to solve.
The doughnut has had its last day. The pizza, however, is staying.
