Nirali Amin
Fashion designer and boutique in Vadodara — bridal and festive wear, made since 2014. Old hand skills, new shapes, and something new each season, never a repeat.
Good cloth, hand work, and a fit that belongs to one person.
How the studio worksA wedding, a festival, or one evening you want to remember. We start by asking what you have in mind, then build it around you. Good cloth, embroidery done by hand, and a piece nobody else will have.
The studio is one room on the first floor of MSA House on Old Padra Road, and one designer. Every piece that carries this name was cut here, and the embroidery on it was done at a frame in this room — not sent out to whichever workshop was cheapest that month.
One studio, one designer
That is on the front page as a fact, and here is what it means day to day. There is no design team and no second branch. Nirali sees every piece as it grows, at the frame, instead of seeing it only when it comes back finished from somewhere else — which is the moment a problem stops being fixable and starts being expensive.
Read more
It is also why the studio takes only a limited number of orders at a time, and why the wedding season fills up months ahead. A studio that can take on any amount of work in any time frame is sending it out to someone else.
Nothing is made twice
No stock, no rack, no repeats. Every piece begins after someone asks for it and is cut to one body. That is why an order takes four weeks at most, and why a piece photographed three years ago can still be made for you now. Open since October 2014, more than 3,700 customers, and not one piece made twice.
What a visit is like
By appointment, Monday to Saturday, between two and seven. It is a working studio, not a shop: there is no floor of finished pieces to walk past, which surprises people who have not had something made before.
Read more
The first talk is about the occasion, your date and your body, in that order. Bring photos of things you like, or bring nothing. Bring your mother — most people do. If you are travelling in from somewhere else in Gujarat, tell us before you set out so we can make the trip worth it.
The karigars
The hand work is done by karigars — embroidery craftsmen — who work with this studio directly, at adda frames, the wooden frames the cloth is pulled tight across. It is skilled work, it is slow, and there is less of it every year. Most of what is sold as hand embroidery in India today is machine-made, and most of what really is hand-made passes through several workshops before it reaches the person whose name is on the label.
Who we make for
Brides, mostly, and their families — the sister, the friends, the mothers, the men. Brides travel in from Ahmedabad, Surat, Anand, Nadiad, Bharuch and Godhra. More and more of our work now goes abroad, to families in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and the Gulf, measured on a video call of about twenty minutes.
Read more
Beyond weddings: Navratri, Diwali, and the occasions in between.
Questions about the studio
Does Nirali design every piece herself?
Yes. There is one designer and no design team, and she sees every piece as it grows at the frame rather than only when it comes back finished from somewhere else — which is the moment a problem stops being fixable and starts being expensive.
Are the karigars part of the studio, or is the work sent out?
They work with this studio directly, at adda frames in the room on Old Padra Road. Most of what is sold as hand embroidery in India today is machine-made, and most of what really is hand-made passes through several workshops before it reaches the person whose name is on the label. That is the difference this studio is built on.
Machine embroidery is faster and cheaper. Why do you still do it by hand?
Because it looks it. A hand-worked piece reads as more premium and more attractive than the same design run by machine, and a bride can usually tell even before anyone explains why. Turn a piece over and the back shows a hand worked it, stitch by stitch, over weeks rather than seconds — that is what the extra time buys, and it is not something a machine can be made to fake.
How many orders does the studio take at a time?
A limited number, and that is a consequence rather than a policy — a studio that can take on any amount of work in any time frame is sending it out to someone else. It is also why the wedding season fills up months ahead.
Is anything sold ready-made?
No. There is no stock, no rack and no repeats. Every piece begins after someone asks for it and is cut to one body, which surprises people who have not had something made before — there is no floor of finished pieces to walk past.