Tarana By Ashdeen Celebrates Parsi Gara And Bandhani
· Free Press Journal
There is more to Parsi Gara than meets the eye. The textile tradition may have travelled to India from Persia with the Zoroastrians, but it adapted, evolved and transformed with historic exchanges between Parsi communities and Chinese artisans. At a moment when India’s prolific textile and handloom heritage is finding renewed authority and a clearer voice on the global stage, Ashdeen Lilaowala’s Gara collections highlight how traditional crafts can evolve without losing their cultural essence. His newly released collection of sarees, Tarana, “Brings together two distinct craft forms—hand-dyed Bandhani and Parsi Gara hand embroidery. In a departure from what is expected of a brand like ours, we have appliquéd botanical motifs edged with hand-beading on a canvas of flowing Bandhani dots. Realised in a palette of festive colours, the sarees are designed for textile connoisseurs who can appreciate the beauty of layers revealing themselves one by one,” Lilaowala shares.
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As a revivalist, Lilaowala works with various textiles to lend Gara a sense of universality under the umbrella of his eponymous brand. Tarana finds its muse in 13th-century Indo-Persian poet and musician Amir Khusrau, who first composed the tarana. Just as blending Persian and Indian musical traditions came together in rhythmic musical syllables performed at a medium or fast pace, the sarees use Bandhani as the foundation, atop which lie the meticulous Gara silk appliqués. The consistency of geometric patterns created by the tie-and-dye juxtaposes the fluidity of botanical forms of the embroidery. This is Lilaowala’s third collection using Bandhani after Routes and Bombay Talkies; “I have always loved Bandhani for its striking graphic quality. Even as a student of textile design, I worked with hand-dyed Bandhani as a technique. I am drawn to the fact that it’s minimal yet decorative,” he says.
Both Bandhani and Parsi Gara are not trend-bound, its knowledge is encoded in the hands of skilled artisans. For Tarana, he collaborated with a brand called Neelgar by Kamaldeep Kaur, who works with hundreds of artisans across Gujarat to create Bandhani surfaces. “We wanted to experiment with a novel technique and a new interpretation of our Parsi Gara aesthetic,” he says about his decision to choose appliqué. The brand works with a team of over 300 craftspeople to render the intricacies of the Parsi Gara embroidery flawlessly by hand.
Apart from Bandhani, Lilaowala has incorporated Parsi Gara in Kanjivaram and Pashmina to present the embroidery tradition in a new light. The collection moves beyond preservation into dialogue, where heritage becomes a living, collaborative language connecting cultures, generations, and modern identities.