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Custom colours matched to the bride's outfit
The workshop
Twelve people in one Mumbai workshop. No agents, no white-labelling, and nothing on this site that we have not cut ourselves.
01
Raw silk and silk blends from Kanchipuram and Bengaluru, velvet from Surat, cotton-silk for the pieces meant for a daytime haldi. We buy in short lengths, which is why a colourway sometimes does not come back.
02
Your measurements are drafted onto paper before anything is cut. A sherwani is eleven panels; a bandhgala is nine with a closed collar that has to be built rather than folded. Half an inch of adjustment is left in the side seams, because a local alteration should be cheap if it is ever needed.
03
Panels are framed flat on an adda and worked by hand. Zardozi is metal wire couched down stitch by stitch — a dense placket and cuff pair is close to a week of one artisan's time, which is most of what you are paying for on a heavily worked piece.
04
Embroidered panels are joined, then lined in cotton-satin so the metalwork never touches skin. The armhole is set by hand; a machine-set armhole on a stiff collar is what makes a sherwani sit away from the neck.
05
Pressed on the form, checked against the draft, and photographed for you before it is boxed. Buttons are the last thing on, so a shank can still be moved if the fitting says so.
A tailored piece is six weeks from the day the measurements are settled. Dense embroidery is eight. Those are not padded dates — the frame time is the frame time, and a wedding is a bad thing to be optimistic about.
If your date is closer than that, write to us anyway. We will tell you honestly whether it can be done, whether the embroidery has to be simplified, or whether you would be better served by something already cut.
We will not print embroidery and call it zardozi. We will not promise a colour we cannot source, and we will not cut against a date we do not believe in. If the honest answer is no, you will get the honest answer.