Anahita Cowasji’s Quiltessence is a house of individually designed and crafted home textiles, woven and block printed, hand embroidered and textured into pieces of intrinsic value and beauty.
Born into a Parsi family in a sleepy cantonment town, she started her workshop under a tamarind tree in the back cottage of her parent’s compound, where it has remained ever since. Mhow is fortuitously located not far from the handloom weaving town of Maheshwar, the block print village of Bagh and the textile city of Indore. The convent here was, till recently, run by French nuns who meticulously imparted their craft of needlework to the local girls. The old almirahs in their hauntingly beautiful colonial home were repositories for gara saris and borders. From these traditions come the incandescent weaves, prints and embroideries that form a leitmotif through her collection and body of work.
An education in the liberal arts and Fashion, and her experience in garment factories of the day, positioned her to design and manufacture for several well known and well loved labels and stores. Egged on by her children and her husband, she has finally decided on an online presence in the form of a retail store under her own name, Anahita Cowasji.