Gara Met Gala: How a Parsi heirloom went from auntywear to blue carpet

Time of India

25-05-2025

Once tucked away in family trunks, the intricately embroidered sari is finding a second life on global red carpets, courtesy a new generation of revivalists
We're all a bit nostalgic these days. The young romanticising eras they never lived through. The old convinced things were better back then. No surprise then that throwbacks and heirlooms are having their moment. None more so than the
Parsi Gara
sari after fashionista Natasha Poonawalla sashayed down the Met Gala carpet in a dramatic fishtail made by Manish Malhotra from two vintage
Garas
and Nita Ambani wrapped herself in its fine threadwork at Harvard India Conference. And just like that, this slumbering textile legacy stirred back into the spotlight.
'When Natasha wore
Gara
at the Met, of course, we were upset it wasn't one of our pieces,' laughs textile designer Ashdeen Lilaowala, 'but the craft got an international platform. What matters more is that people are talking about it.'The revival of the
Parsi
Gara isn't just about celebrity cameos but about people like Lilaowalla who are keeping the art of this ancient embroidery alive. And not just among Parsis. 'Eighty percent of our clientele is non-Parsi,' he says.
Long before its red-carpet outings, the Parsi Gara had already racked up mileage. As trade grew between Canton and Bombay in the 18th and 19th centuries, Parsi merchants brought back embroidered silks from China. One story goes that a trader asked a Chinese artisan to embroider six yards of silk as a sari for his wife back home. Those early Garas weren't saris in the typical sense. Just rectangular panels without pallus or borders. It was Parsi women who transformed them and draped them with pleats to the right, pallu trailing low, and a peek of white lace. The enclosed field or 'gala' in Gujarati gave the Gara its name.
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In Bharuch, elderly Parsis still recall the Chinese traders who cycled in with bundles of Garas sold by the kilo and taught embroidery techniques to Parsi women in exchange for chai. Designer Zenobia Davar adds a colourful footnote: 'It's said, wealthy Parsis would often gift them to their wives and mistresses,' she says. 'Sometimes, the mistresses received more lavish pieces than the wives leading to a fierce competition over who had the finest Gara!'
The stories stitched into Parsi Garas also carried their own whimsy. A spinning motif was called karolia (spider), clustered dots were 'kanda-papeta' (onion-potato), a rooster-hen pattern became 'marga-margi' and 'China-Chini,' a Chinese man and woman. Some even had pagodas, bridges, steam engines and boats.
Nature motifs were common as Zoroastrianism is a nature-revering religion, says
Shernaz Cama
, founder of the Unesco-backed
Parzor Crafts
in Delhi which has worked for decades to document and revive Parsi embroidery. 'Birds, flowers, gardens weren't just motifs. Every cluster of peonies or birds of paradise was a prayer disguised as pattern.'
But as fashion changed, so did the Gara's fate. 'With tastes shifting to figure-hugging chiffons on one side and the khadi movement on the other, the silk Gara went out of fashion.' It wasn't just trends, says Cama. 'Women skilled in embroidery moved into office jobs.'
Lilaowala traces its decline to 'geopolitical reasons'. The Communist movement in China disrupted supply chains and as India leaned into the swadeshi movement, elaborate saris felt out of place. Davar calls the 1970s the tipping point. 'With industrialisation, powerlooms replaced handlooms and we lost not just fabrics, but also lost weavers. Some even traded authentic Garas for aluminium vessels.'
And so, the Gara retreated into family trunks and was worn mostly on Navroz, in agyaris (fire temples) and studio portraits. Until revival began almost instinctively. For Davar, the moment came when she received two authentic Garas at her wedding. 'It changed me. I felt a deep responsibility to honour and protect this heritage.' Nearly 25 years on, her studio specialises in handcrafted Gara spanning saris, bridalwear, children's clothes, accessories, and home decor. 'We created art that could live closer to people — frames for homes, coin purses, spectacle cases, and cushion covers.' In 2014, UK's Cherie Blair took home one of Davar's embroidered frames to hang in her London office. But Davar's 'proudest moment' she says is crafting 'The Forbidden Stitch' for Nita Ambani — a technique once reserved for Chinese nobility. 'It was so minute and painstaking that artisans would often develop cataracts. Today, we've revived it. Our artisans work under optimal lighting, take breaks and never stitch more than two hours a day, preserving both their eyesight and sanctity of the work.'
Lilaowala's journey began with research. 'After graduating, I travelled to China, India and Iran to trace motifs,' he says. In family collections across regions, he began spotting familiar patterns. 'That helped build a repertoire of what Parsi Gara is.' When he launched his label in 2012, it wasn't just to recreate heirlooms. 'I wanted to make something a young woman could appreciate and wear today without needing to know its history first.'
But sustaining a slow craft in a fast world isn't easy. 'Each motif takes years of training to perfect,' says Davar. 'A single embroidered sari takes anywhere from three to 18 months.' But time isn't the only cost. 'The biggest roadblock is the price of an authentic Gara,' says Cama. 'Which is why we've tried to tailor the work to fit the purse. The other challenge is that the Parsi women who carry memory no longer want to pursue it professionally. How do we remember the stories and symbols, then?'
Davar points to another threat. 'Machine-made pieces that mimic the surface look of a Gara but lack the soul of hand craftsmanship.'
Still, there's hope. Parzor, for instance, has trained a cohort ranging from SEWA-trained women in Ahmedabad to Parsi families in Navsari and master craftsmen in Delhi to keep what they call 'a unique multicultural tradition' alive.
Lilaowala is determined to change the perception that Garas are 'something aunties wear'. He embroiders Gara onto Kanjivarams, Bandhanis, men's waistcoats and even creates handpainted prints. Not everyone approves. 'After I wove a Gara into a Benarasi, a textile historian told me, 'You've killed the craft! Now it'll be copied in China',' he laughs. 'But you have to see Gara with fresh eyes.'