Our Trip to India - Summer 26

There were samples to approve, fabrics to choose, details to get right — and while it's so much easier face to face, it's the people we work with that make us want to go back to India year after year.

Watching our amazing sewing team making our clothes is so rewarding. We wish we could take you all there to see it with us — there is creativity all around, and so much opportunity to create something beautiful that you can't help but be excited.

Our mornings start with chai in the office, sweet and spiced, while we wait for the samples to make their way to us from the sampling floor. Then we tweak, add details, change collars, discuss sleeves, add gather — whatever is needed to perfect our collections. We hunt through shelves of buttons and reels of trim looking for the perfect finishing touches, then they're whisked away and perfected by our clever sampling team, ready for us to carry home for our photoshoot.

Lunch arrives in tiffin pots, and our showroom desk turns into a little dining room for an hour or so. We all gather round to chat about our families and news. The food is often home-cooked, and always delicious.

We timed our trip perfectly this time to see our Autumn collection being made — a hive of activity on the production floor, the rhythm of sewing machines, piles of frill and labels and floral fabric all waiting to be turned into gorgeous little pieces of clothing.

The highlight of our trip had to be our visit to a lace factory just around the corner from our own factory. Invited by chance, when we visited the owner's shop in Nehru Place, this factory was fascinating, like the best museum you've ever been to — still using enormous Victorian machines, shipped all the way from Nottingham, to make their laces. Over 150 years old and working perfectly. We couldn't take photos to share with you, but we felt really privileged to see these antique machines still working and making such beautiful lace.

Our evenings were spent with our factory teams, enjoying drinks and dinner, or hunting for gifts to take home to our families in the bustling (and very hot) markets. We came home with fabric, finalised samples, fun memories, and full scrapbooks of swatches.

The samples we worked on won't come to life for a whole year — it takes that long to create something so lovely.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read about our trip to India. 

With Love, Leonie and Imogen xx