In 2009, When the artistic director Eiesha Bharti Pasricha, 41, moved from New Delhi to London to get married, her grandmother gave her a collection of pashmina shawls, “hoping I’d pass them on to my daughter someday,” she says. Instead, Bharti Pasricha — who says she’s long loved “tinkering” with fabrics, often enlisting a tailor to replace the linings of her vintage Alexander McQueen and Sonia Rykiel pieces with Indian textiles — used the cashmere wraps to make cushions. Her mother was irate, but the scolding did nothing to curb Bharti Pasricha’s desire to reimagine and repurpose. About two years ago, she rediscovered a trunk full of silks and brocades that she’d collected from all over India as inspiration for her wedding outfits and invitations. “I thought, ‘What if I told a story that merged these fabrics with the way I dress?’” she says.
The result is her new fashion brand, Lady E, a capsule collection of 12 pieces hand-stitched in Naples, Italy, and featuring subtle Indian silk and brocade elements. The name is a homage to the fictitious namesake of Maison Estelle, her husband, Sharan Pasricha’s, four-year-old London members’ club, and Estelle Manor, his Oxfordshire country hotel, which opened in 2023. Bharti Pasricha serves as the creative director of both properties.
Sold at Estelle Manor and online, the collection is luxurious but also practical enough for her day-to-day life. “Everything has to go with denim,” she says. While shirts and pants are included in the mix, the focus is on outerwear, a category that, as a frequent traveler, Bharti Pasricha finds particularly important. The Yatra, an oversize jacket made of navy merino wool with a yellow brocade-lined collar, has four extra-deep pockets to hold essentials like a passport, lip balm and keys — “the bits I forget in the tray when I go through security at Heathrow,” she says.
Other garments were informed by her own vintage-filled wardrobe. The Devi overcoat, made of double-faced navy cashmere and lined with pink-and-gold brocade, is modeled after a 1992 Saint Laurent jacket. The Samyati trench, which comes in either a dark green or a gray wool twill, is the line’s most dramatic offering, with a vivid teal-and-pink brocade on the cuffs and extra-long epaulets. But as in nearly all of Bharti Pasricha’s designs, the bright touches can be tucked away. Lady E, her longtime muse, exudes a “quiet power,” she says — and, with its chameleonic details, her wardrobe is no different.
Photo assistant: Sam Brown
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