About

Every gesture leaves something behind.

A hand guides cloth across a table. A seam is adjusted until the proportion settles. A stitch, repeated across generations, becomes instinct. These gestures are small by nature, but they carry something larger: the memory of how an object came to be, and the care required to make it last.

NANDA begins with that exchange.

Founded by Pooja Barbhaiya, the House is shaped by disciplines that share the same eye. Painting taught line, shape, and the patience of looking closely. Summers in India offered another kind of study: the rhythm of artisan markets, the weight of a sari passed down, the particular attention required to press a flower and preserve it. Later, pattern making gave line dimension, while years designing accessories sharpened an attention to mechanics. A drawstring can carry the logic of a bag into the construction of a trouser

These are not separate influences. They are the same instinct, applied to different materials.

That instinct gives NANDA its contrasts. Painterly surfaces meet architectural silhouettes. Softness finds structure. Construction is allowed to remain visible rather than disappearing beneath the finished garment. Form is considered from every angle, with proportion, drape, and volume shaping a presence that is sculptural without becoming rigid.

Distilled, not replicated.

NANDA is designed between New York and India, where specialists in patternmaking, knitwear, and handcraft each bring their own creative influence to the work. The House finds its dimension in the exchange between both places and the particular knowledge carried by the people who make within them.

These techniques hold histories that long precede the work itself. Bandhani and mirror work reflect traditions rooted in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Chikankari, kantha, and chanderi jacquard enter the vocabulary alongside the sari's drape, the salwar, and the architecture of pleating. These are not motifs to be lifted intact or heritage preserved behind glass.

The wearer completes what the maker begins.

Adjustable construction allows garments to respond as bodies and lives change. An evening piece can return in daylight. This is Dressing for Life: clothing conceived beyond a single moment. Meaning gathers through wear.

What a Name Carries.

NANDA honors Gulzarilal Nanda, Pooja Barbhaiya's great-grandfather, a Gandhian statesman, labor advocate, and two-time Acting Prime Minister of India. His commitment to self-reliance and the dignity of work gives the name a responsibility beyond lineage.

NANDA is a name inherited. What the House makes of that inheritance is ongoing.

Knowledge survives through practice.