Bargachia and Bandpur, Bengal | How Rahul Mishra nailed the pre-stitched sari for Zendaya

According to recorded history, clothing in India has been hand-spun, dyed and handwoven right up to the Indus Valley Civilisation, over 3,000 years before Christ. The Greek historian Herodotus described Indian cotton as “a wool exceeding in beauty and goodness”. Trade routes by land and by sea created a great cultural exchange between India, China, Central Asia and Europe. In the early 17th century the East India Company began taking India’s local produce, primarily raw cotton, and industrialise it into cloth that it sold to the rest of the world, including India. At the time, Indian cotton dressed 90 per cent of the world.

Mahatma Gandhi took us back to our ancient roots of spinning, weaving and dyeing our own cloth instead of buying back from the British what they stole from us. Gandhi famously said, “If the village perishes, India perishes.”

Today, India’s fashion industry is growing and thriving thanks to rural enterprise. The story of Indian fashion is the story of our village crafts. India is on its way to dressing the world once again. And here are five examples of international outfits whose roots can be traced to the villages where they were made.

Zendaya, actor

Bargachia and Bandpur, Bengal

ALL EYES WERE on American movie star Zendaya when she came to India in April 2023 for the launch of the ‘India in Fashion’ exhibition that inaugurated the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) in Mumbai. Designed by Rahul Mishra and custom-made for the actor, the blue sari she wore featured three-dimensional embroidery. It was then tailored to look like a skirt with a trail and a veil over one shoulder, almost like a gown with a long scarf. It became one of the most modern and easy to wear iterations of the sari. The embroidery featured stars in a dark sky, and the hem had beautiful fauna—tigers, squirrels, flamingos—looking up at the sky.

Mishra says this was the design for the sari he had in mind when Zendaya’s stylist Law Roach approached him. Mishra had previously designed for Zendaya for a Bulgari event in 2020. “Law called and said Zendaya and he were coming to Mumbai and needed clothes for the NMACC opening,” says Mishra. “I wanted to make something Indian. I had never done a pre-stitched sari before, but I thought she may like it. I also made two evening gowns which she loved and took back with her.” But she wore the sari, which Mishra had hoped she would pick and celebrate India internationally. “The pre-pleated sari can be worn by anyone,” he says. “Many Chinese celebrities bought some from us, too. In fact, almost 60 per cent of its customers were not Indian. So, it can work like an evening dress.”

Mishra is famously an advocate of reverse migration, where he encourages artisans who live in cities to move back to the villages and work from there. He has previously told me that he pays his artisans a city salary, but once they live and work in the village, its ecosystem thrives. Money is made in the village and spent in the village, and that’s how the village grows.

Mishra met Afzal Saidullah Mullah when they were both working for an embroidery house in Mumbai in 2008. By 2013, they had quit and become partners.

Afzalbhai now manages three workshops in Bengal’s Howrah district, two in the village Bandpur, and one in Bargachia, a village 20 minutes away.

When I land at the Kolkata airport, Afzalbhai receives me and takes me directly to the villages. He is accompanied by Sabeena, a 31-year-old widow with two children, who lives in a mud house by the creek. She doubles as Afzalbhai’s housekeeper, and is not permitted to work in his workshop as “families here don’t allow women to work outside the house”.

We climb up a dusty office building to Afzalbhai’s atelier in Bargachia. There are around 70 men here, bent over several large frames with fabric stretched across it. Heads down, they silently and serenely move their embroidery needles about as though with muscle memory. It’s almost like swimming underwater, soundlessly and with studied movements.

“Can’t you play some music?” I ask Afzalbhai. “They are listening to their own choice of music through their earphones,” he smiles. The men are warm and welcoming, and want to take pictures with me. Their workmanship is the opposite of their workplace—it’s so fine, fanciful and extraordinary that it is almost impossible to believe the embroidery is made by hand.

“I didn’t know who the sari was for,” Afzalbhai says when I show him Zendaya’s picture on my phone. “I don’t know who she is.” But he recalls eight men had worked on the sari. “Normally a sari takes between 400 to 2,000 hours to create, depending on the volume of embroidery,” he says.

Bargachia is known for its creative labour, as Afzalbhai calls it. No one here is interested in academics. In the atelier, different artisans specialise in different embroidery techniques, like aari (a hooked needle) or zardozi (a raised style of gold thread-work). Madhav, an artisan, shows me the different types of needles for different techniques.

The monthly rent for the larger unit in Bargachia is Rs23,000, while it is Rs8,000 and Rs3,000 respectively for the smaller units in Bandpur. The workers get paid between Rs800 and Rs1,000 a day. Mishra sends the fabric and one embroidered swatch or panel, and the artisans emulate the embroidery flawlessly.

“Even though I was working at the embroidery house where I met Rahul for 17 years, I left when he left. He has a good heart. His colours and design process are so unique,” says Afzalbhai. “The salary is also good, and I always get paid on time.”

In 2023, Mishra took Afzalbhai and Prince, another embroidery artisan from the Noida atelier, to the Paris Haute Couture Week. It was Afzalbhai’s first time abroad, even though he has a daughter who studies in Newcastle, UK (the other two children are teachers in Mumbai). “Paris was just too beautiful. Rahul made us a part of the show,” he says.

Afzalbhai is clearly a benevolent leader to his artisans. “I am an embroiderer too, so I know how difficult the work is. I don’t believe in pushing people; some are strong and quick, others are slower. But I ensure I keep everyone employed,” he says. “Plus, there is a lot of pressure on the eyes.”

The remarkable thing about the villages is that half the artisans are Hindu and half Muslim, and everyone gets along fine. “We really struggled during Covid,” says Afzalbhai. “Rahul helped us for sure, but our Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ensured no one was hungry.”