Marking the launch of Tilfi’s flagship store in Bombay on 21st March 2025, the house hosted a curatorial heritage walk in collaboration with Khaki Tours. The evening traced the architectural legacy of Ballard Estate before leading guests into an immersive experience at the new store, where Tilfi’s evolving design language and craft explorations were brought together in a single, sensorial setting.
Set within Vakils House in the heart of Mumbai, the store occupies a site long associated with craftsmanship, printing and artistic exchange. Its history aligned naturally with Tilfi’s ethos of honouring lineage while shaping new creative directions. The interiors reflected this philosophy through a thoughtful arrangement of symbolic elements: water channels echoing the Ganges, buff tones recalling the sandstone ghats, Shikargah motifs framing the wooden columns and sculpted brass flowing with textile-like ease.
As the concluding destination of the walk, the space opened into a curated showcase of Tilfi’s explorations across narrative, material and technique. The inaugural display revisited classic Banarasi design with renewed clarity of intent. ‘Songs of the Seasons’ highlighted the floral vocabulary of India’s street florals like palash and amaltas, while Shikargah introduced rare and unexpected animals seldom seen in weaves.
The display then expanded into cross-cultural and interdisciplinary interpretations of Banarasi artistry. French Rococo and Japanese Ikebana inspired new visual translations that remained rooted while gently extending the expressive potential of Banarasi. An archival section presented the 32-foot graph of ‘Yatra’, created for the Parliament building, along with hand-rendered illustrations by Padma Shri Jadunath Supakar, reaffirming the depth of the house’s artistic inheritance. Further material studies were showcased through the Silk Wool collection, a technical inquiry into combining the warmth of Pashmina with the lustre of Silk. The metal art interventions that reinterpreted textile motifs in brass mirrored the fluid finish of the fabric in metal, in a tribute to the ancient repoussé craft tradition of Banaras.
The evening concluded with experiences that grounded the event in classic Banarasi custom. The ‘Gaddi’ setting invited slow, tactile engagement with the textiles, while ‘Under the Lens’ offered an intimate view of the house’s most intricate weaves. The culinary curation brought Banarasi flavours into contemporary form, presenting layered, crafted bites that echoed the spirit of reinvention. Across the space, thoughtful design details anchored the space in cultural memory, inviting guests to linger, observe and connect. As guests moved through the store, each interaction sparked curiosity. An encounter with new interpretations of familiar motifs encouraged room for reflection and conversation.
A study in storytelling across craft, space and atmosphere, the Mumbai event marked more than the opening of a store. It signalled the beginning of a new chapter for Tilfi in a city shaped by its own histories of art, commerce and cultural exchange.
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