The making stays in the detail.

How We Make

A RIHLA piece carries the decisions made before it reaches your wardrobe: the fiber, the weave, the print, the hands, the hours and the finishing that lets it wear beautifully.

It begins with the cloth.

We choose natural fibers and considered weaves for the way they feel, breathe and change with wear. Cotton, khadi and chanderi each bring a different hand and rhythm to a piece. The silhouette follows the cloth, not the other way around.

The techniques are part of the design.

Hand block printing, indigo mud block printing, handloom weaving and hand embroidery shape the character of the garment from the beginning. Every print, texture and stitch carries the evidence of practiced skill.

Many hands, one garment.

Before a piece reaches you, it may pass through the hands of a cotton farmer, weaver, printer, embroiderer, tailor and finisher. Each person brings a different kind of knowledge to the cloth. We build direct, lasting relationships with our artisan partners and workshops, so the work is understood as skill, time and craft, and paid for accordingly.

Details are decisions.

Pintucks, covered buttons, smocking, gathers and hand embroidery each have a role in the way a piece looks, moves or feels. A detail earns its place when it gives the garment character and makes it more satisfying to wear.

The inside is part of the making.

We finish each garment with the same care inside as out. Seams are clean and comfortable, linings are used where they support the fabric and the body, and closures are designed to open and sit easily. French or flat-finished seams, where the construction calls for them, help a piece lie cleanly on the body and wear well over time.

The final check.

Before a piece leaves the workshop, it is checked for the balance of the hem, the fall of the sleeve, the feel of the seam and the ease of the closure. The aim is a garment whose craft becomes part of the way it lives on you.

See the work in the pieces.

A garment can carry a great deal and still feel easy. That is the balance we are always working toward.

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