Our Story

Agaira was born from a simple belief: Indian clothing has never needed to be modernised. It needed to be seen.

It started long before the shop did - with two families from opposite ends of India. I’m from Lucknow, in the north. My husband is from Kerala, in the south. When we met, I started discovering Kanjivaram silks and Kasavu weaves through him, and he started discovering Chikankari embroidery through me - two traditions, thousands of kilometres apart, meeting in one home.

We carried both of those worlds with us to the UK. And once we were here, the frustration set in - trying to find a saree or a kurta set that felt as considered as the ones we grew up seeing at home. Not diluted. Not “Indian-inspired.” The real thing.

So we went to the source. Every saree, every kurta, every lehenga in our collection comes from a tradition with a name: Kanjivaram, Chikankari, Banarasi, Kasavu, Chanderi. Woven by hands in Kanchipuram, embroidered by artisans in Lucknow, painted by weavers in Kerala. Traditions passed from one pair of hands to another for generations. We are not reinventing them. We are carrying them forward.

When our family grew, we wanted a name that carried all of it too - not just the two of us, but the little ones who made us a family in a new country. Agaira is that name: a piece of him, a piece of me, and a piece of our kids, woven into one word. Different threads, carried forward together - the same idea the brand is built on.

Agaira is for women who have always known what their grandmother’s saree smells like. For women who move between two worlds and never once feel they’re choosing between them. I am one of them.

We are based in Manchester, run by a family from two different Indias. Every piece I choose is chosen with care, because what you wear is not just fabric - it is memory, identity, and quiet pride.

Akansha
Founder, Agaira Studio