January 01, 2026

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The Long Voyage

I see Ashdeen Lilaowala for the first time through my laptop screen, a modern-day artist in his Mumbai house, dressed in a sakura-pink shirt, his hair neatly brushed back, and his smile ample. Yet, when he speaks there is a nostalgia-laced, almost otherworldly quality to him that is irresistibly beautiful. His earliest memory of the Parsi gara embroidery, he shares, is not anchored in a museum vitrine or a scholarly text, but in the intimacy of family life. Lilaowala recalls the poignant image of his mother wearing a black heirloom sari scattered with pale yellow roses--an image so vivid that even today he wonders whether it is memory or photograph that has fixed itself so clearly in his mind. In many ways for me, this ambiguity mirrors the nature of the gara itself, which over the course of our conversation I come to view as an intertwined triptych of personal recollection, community folklore, and global historyFor generations of Parsis, the gara has functioned as more than ceremonial attire. It is a vessel of inheritance, a repository of stories that carries within itself the knowledge of who wore it and on what occasion, while also remembering to look to the future and asking which daughter or granddaughter it will pass to next. Lilaowala grew up surrounded by these conversations, absorbing not only the visual language of the embroidery but also the myths, anecdotes, and half-documented histories layered onto it over timeTrained as a textile designer at the National Institute of Design, Lilaowala initially approached gara not as a designer but as a researcher. Early in his career, he travelled across China and Iran, mapping the historic routes through which Parsi traders carried Indian cotton and opium eastward, returning with tea, porcelain, and--perhaps most significantly--the embroidery techniques that would evolve into the gara. At the time, this research had no commercial intention. But a friend's innocent ask changed everything for the young designer overnight. By 2012, Lilaowala had launched his label, with a clear vision of working exclusively with the Parsi gara for the modern woman. "I never wanted to slavishly copy traditional pieces," he says. "I wanted to make the gara fun and contemporary for a younger audience because at that time there weren't many people in Mumbai who were working with the embroidery. There were a few stray pop-ups and some female-led businesses, but no actual awareness." When Lilaowala entered the fashion landscape, gara existed largely within domestic spaces or small, informal ateliers. His vision was to position it as a contemporary design language and drawing on his formal training, he began dismantling the visual assumptions around the technique. Heavy, densely embroidered borders soon disappeared, while motifs began to get scaled up and scattered freely across the fabric. Cranes, borrowed from East Asian visual vocabularies, floated across saris like

Crafting Everyday Ease

Upon entering Galeries Lafayette in Fort, Mumbai, I was extremely pleased with the interiors--it was a ref lection of Indian craftsmanship blended seamlessly with the French heritage. So playful, joyful, and rich, and I said to myself, `Patou was meant to be here in India'," Guillaume Henry, the Creative Director of the French luxury brand, tells me as we catch up on Zoom. Henry's zest reflects in the brand's philosophy and aesthetic alike. Founded in 1914 by Jean Patou, the young couturier wanted to free women from the confinement of restrictive clothing. He designed dresses without corsets, chic skirts, and introduced a sports line. A century later, the joy and ease of dressing persists"When I relaunched the brand with the team, seven years ago, I was clear that nobody was waiting for Patou to come back. The only reason that the brand could reappear was if it had something unique to offer. The idea was to create a realistic wardrobe for the contemporary woman," Henry reflects. He found his muse, and eventually customers in his girl best friends. "I'm a better designer when I know the woman I dress. So, it translated into a joyful wardrobe with colourful, playful, and creative details. It was about fantasy, joy, enthusiasm, and fashion; not the kind that would scream for attention, but one with soul and spirit." Being at the helm of brands like Carven and Nina Ricci before taking the reins of Patou in 2018, Henry has mastered the art of straddling his singular design vocabulary with the respective brands' legacy through the course of his illustrious career. "Growing up, fashion magazines couldn't really make it to my home in the East of France. I discovered fashion through legacy houses. I wanted to be a designer because of Christian Lacroix," he reminisces with a smile on his face. Henry is attuned to a brand's aesthetic identity, but it's the