Spinning a Magic Yarn

CONTRARY TO what one might expect, walking into Ashdeen Z Lilaowala’s Noida headquarters, what greets us first is not cloth, but paper. Spread across a long table, sheets of tracing paper overlap forming a long tapestry. It is a drawn history of the Parsi Gara’s journey from India to China and back. There are scenes of sea voyages speckled with marine life, opium cultivation and smuggling routes in the guise of tea trade, silks being crafted and embroi­dered, Chinese landscapes and Parsi homes, lives of makers and those who wear them. Bordering the panels are poppies, “The idea was to show that something so beautiful came from something so intoxicating,” says Lilaowala. It will take at least three months, perhaps more, before the saree-length art installation is ready— bathed in indigo and embroidered with white threads—for a show­case at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design, US).

Storytelling is Lilaowala’s favourite part about Parsi Gara, which he has celebrated and rein­vented in various measures since launching his eponymous label in 2012. “I keep saying Parsi Gara is an aesthetic rather than a technique. It allows for the spinning of a yarn—you can take a narrative or even an element of a story and render it realistically,” he says.

Magic seeker and a magpie for beautiful things, Lilaowala has built his studio and workshop as an assemblage of everything he cherishes. The library filled with books and magazines testifies to his love for reading and art is ev­erywhere, from the surface of his clothing to a textile art by artist Ajit Kumar Das that sits in his office. Vintage hand-sewing machines share space with antique chairs and partitions. And finally, a room dedicated to archival textiles speaks to his love for cloth. There are Tanchoi and Banarasis neatly arranged in almirahs, but Parsi Gara dominates the collection— sarees, jhablas (tunics), and hun­dreds of borders embroidered with flora and fauna, human figures, mythology, and marine life. Rare designs include embroidered dragons (traditionally worn only by monarchs in China), Chinese imperial motifs with gold work, and bats that look like butterflies. “A lot of people now come and give us their old textiles. Some of these are at least 200 years old,” he adds, laughing. “I am putting all my hard-earned money into these.”

This expansive archive that Lilaowala hopes to showcase some day in a museum space or exhibition is also an unend­ing source of inspiration for the label. ASHDEEN’s collections are always rooted in his heritage, even as he experiments with designs, materials, and techniques. In his forthcoming collection, slated to drop in time for Navroze celebra­tions in March, Lilaowala and his team are working on bi-coloured and embroidered designs loosely inspired by yin-yang symbolism. “We are working on pastels with contrasting embroidery. We only work on Parsi Gara, so we find new ways to do different things.”

Though he has called Delhi home for exactly two decades now, Lilaowala grew up in Mumbai—the epicentre of the Parsi community, with its distinct culture and lifestyle. His mother worked at a bank before starting her own insurance venture, and his father worked in market­ing—his stint at WIMCO, which manufactured matchboxes, got the young Lilaowala hooked on collecting the same. Till date, he counts on his parents for sound business advice. His older sister studied fashion, and he recalls helping her with projects and sketches. Although what eventually turned him towards pursuing a degree at National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, was the prospect of pursu­ing science for the rest of his life. After graduating in 2003, he worked with the UNESCO Parzor Foundation to research and document the history of Parsi Gara embroidery. He also became something of a multi-hyphenate, particularly after moving to Delhi in 2005. He wrote travel features for magazines, taught, dabbled in fashion styling, co-founded a fashion label, and ran an embroidery unit which worked with a couture studio in Los Angeles. “A friend requested me to make her a gara; I had the knowledge, so I thought why not. I made her one and she ordered three more.”

ASHDEEN LAUNCHED IN 2012, with no more than a dozen sarees at a time and Lilaowala ran his business from his Delhi home for the first few years. The label built its market through word of mouth, participating in exhibitions across India beginning with Sarees of India–Delhi Crafts Council’s an­nual exhibition. What distinguished his work the most however was his focus on the Parsi Gara—a craft and design form whose application in fashion remains comparatively rare. Lilaowala posits his labels as textiles-first, but he sought from the beginning to give the gara a fashion­able spin. “Even when I started, I didn’t want to copy traditional designs. We scaled motifs, changed colours, used dif­ferent fabrics, and worked with different threads.” Take for instance, cranes, easily the label’s most popular icon. “Garas have cranes. But never only cranes, or such large cranes as we do.”

Over the years, the label’s experiments have become bolder. He has done gara embroidery on organza, rarely if ever used for sarees. More recently, his line of printed sarees offered familiar motifs from gara in a new format. Almost a de­cade ago, Lilaowala began making bridal and occasion wear lehengas. “It was a real shift, because until then we had been a saree label. Bridalwear is a huge market, and it has space for everybody—our gar­ments take a specific kind of bride, some­one who wants something different.” A purple lehenga in his studio makes his point clear—even without any sequins or embellishments, it stands out thanks to the heavy, elaborate embroidery. “You don’t always need bling.”

Not that he dislikes bling— Lilaowala has added plenty of it to his designs, embroidering sarees entirely with pearls or metallic yarn, or embellish­ing them with sequins. He has combined gara embroidery with leheriya and more recently bandhani. Apart from material in­terventions, his engagement sometimes changes the medium itself. Back in 2016, he collaborated with Banarasi handloom label Ekaya to create woven garas. A collaboration with Chennai-based label Kanakavalli saw gara motifs embroidered on Kanjeevaram sarees and another with carpet brand Obeetee has translated his designs on hand-knotted rugs. Each collection and collaboration pushes the gara’s boundaries—sometimes by a mere margin, at other times by miles.

The reactions can be polarising. Lilaowala recalls how a historian once called him a criminal for the gara Bana­rasis. Many clients have expressed their dislike for his sequinned sarees or lehen­gas—though he noted, ironically enough, many of them ended up buying the items. Lilaowala’s approach to gara as an aesthet­ic rather than technique has broadened his possibilities—embroidery is bound by needle and thread but an aesthetic can be applied to a much broader field. “It’s about taking the gara in every direction,” Lilaowala adds. “We recently did a show in the US, where women wanted tops and jackets as much as sarees. We made mini dresses and people bought them. If there is a product, there will be takers—we just have to do it with conviction and some amount of confidence.”

LILAOWALA’S FORAY INTO stitched garments—a demi-couture line comprising pantsuits, dresses, and separates—is a comparatively recent step for the brand. While Lilaowala has been making accessories, kimonos, scarves, shawls, and jhablas, along with lehengas for some years, his focus on the segment is sharpening. In the latest edition of Lakme Fashion Week in association with FDCI (October 2024), Lilaowala’s Fragments of Time collection, inspired by Dutch artist Patrick Bergsma and Japanese art forms such as bonsai, ikebana, and kintsugi, was shirts and corset blouses, cocktail dresses and minis with plunging necklines, pantsuits and jackets all embroidered. “The emphasis is still on embroidery—it’s our forte and what people come to us for. We make simpler patterns and aren’t into creating elaborate couture.”

Simple silhouettes only ease part of the job. Even stitched garments can take up to three months to embroider, depending on the complexity of designs. Apart from the studio itself, a vast amount of this artisanal work happens at “units” located between Delhi and Bengal. Lilaowala has developed this manufacturing model over several years, engaging artisans to work exclusively with the label. One of Lilaowala’s staff members joined as a cleaner—now he is an office manager and also runs his own unit. “Many families now also have multiple members working in the units. We have managed to bring in younger generations because we have made the work lucrative.” He estimates that around 300–350 artisans work across the various units.

The growth of the artisanal team— both in numbers and skill—has been crucial to the brand’s success and business expansion. From a saree label that oper­ated out of an apartment, Lilaowala now has three stores in Delhi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. Apart from clothes, he has expanded his products range to include a variety of bags and accessories and ventured into textile art.

On February 21, he will showcase a line of his garments and sarees at a runway show in Mumbai, for the Time & Talents Club—a charity organisation founded in 1934 and run by a group of Parsi women. Lilaowala always looks forward to working for and with the Parsi community. “It is my way of giving back to the community. They have offered so much support over the years, that I owe it to them,” he says, recalling stories of families hosting him in different cities when he travelled for exhibitions or carrying packages for him—even the late, legendary dancer Astad Deboo travelled with Lilaowala’s designs.

Lilaowala, however, has never sought to create his label only for the community. Today he says, 80 per cent of his clientele are non-Parsis. In its traditional embroidery form, garas have always been highly coveted. But Lilaowala’s work has turned them into fashion statements, and his prints, de­signs, and collaborative ideas make the designs both accessible and affordable. There are many ways to define crafts, he observes. “Not everyone can afford hand­made crafts. I don’t object to machine-made or prints because even in those forms, the craft lives and gets a new audience. There’s room for everybody.”

Despite this perspective, and the fact that he offers prints, Lilaowala’s commit­ment to the handmade remains steadfast. As does his sense of being rooted to his heritage and creating heirloom designs that outlast fashion seasons. He is highly organised, evident in his workshop, and claims to have all his catalogues, design details, and even prices documented. “We are still selling sarees from catalogues and sarees from 2012. We don’t want to do things that are temporary,” he says. In his designs, and in the hands of his exceptional artisans, the centuries-long story of Parsis— their history, culture, and cosmopolitanism—endures. In threads, pearls, colours, and craft.

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