The Flower, the Labor, and the Sea: Parsi Embroidery at the RISD
In the late eighteenth century, ships crossed the Indian Ocean carrying goods that would reshape textile history. When Parsi merchants returned from China to India, their opium chests were no longer full of narcotics, but of embroidered silks. These textiles, produced by Chinese artisans for export, were intended as gifts for wives and families in Bombay. Cut, rearranged, and painstakingly stitched into new forms, they became the earliest Parsi garas, garments whose beauty would endure long after the routes that carried them had faded.
Installation view of The Flower, The Labor, and The Sea at the RISD Museum.
This layered history sits at the heart of The Flower, the Labor, and the Sea, on view at the RISD Museum until June 28, 2026. Installed in the Donghia Gallery, the exhibition examines the origins of Parsi embroidery through the intertwined forces of global trade, colonial ambition, and skilled labour, asking what lies beneath the intoxicating surface of the gara.
Unknown Maker, Chinese. Jhabla (Tunic); Blouse (Choli), ca. 1875 - 1900. Courtesy of RISD Museum.
The exhibition unfolds through three interlinked themes. The Flower traces the role of the opium poppy, once cultivated in small quantities for medicinal use, before European demand transformed it into a tool of imperial power. The Labor considers the coerced agricultural systems that sustained the trade, binding Indian farmers and Chinese consumers into a cycle of extraction and addiction. The Sea becomes the connective tissue, the oceanic passage through which goods, techniques, and aesthetics circulated.
Unknown Maker, Chinese. Jhabla (Tunic back), ca. 1800 - 1825. Courtesy of RISD Museum.
Within this global system, embroidery flourished. Workshops in Guangzhou, known to European traders as Canton, adapted their practices to suit foreign tastes. Chinese embroiderers became celebrated for their satin stitch so refined that front and reverse were indistinguishable, as well as for tuan chen knot stitch, a technique still visible on surviving garas. Motifs such as cheena-cheeni scenes of courtship and labour, along with birds and flowering branches named chakla-chakli or karoliya, reflect an imagined vision of China shaped for export markets rather than domestic use.
Unknown maker, Chinese. Saree Border, ca. 1800-1900. Courtesy of RISD Museum
As these textiles reached India, they were reworked and reinterpreted. Borders were stitched separately so they could be transferred from one saree to another, allowing garments to be renewed and preserved across generations. Over time, Indian makers introduced chain stitch and cross stitch, creating variations such as kor ni sarees that made the tradition more accessible while maintaining its visual richness.
Bhasha Chakrabarti, The Intoxication of the Flower, the Exhaustion of the Labor, the Circulation of the Seas, and the Seduction of the Stitch (detail), 2023-2025. Courtesy of RISD Museum
At the centre of the gallery stands a newly commissioned textile by Bhasha Chakrabarti and contemporary gara designer Ashdeen Lilaowala. Part garment, part map, and part archive, it brings together trade routes, colonial imagery, family histories, and embroidery patterns drawn from the surrounding displays. The work makes visible the many forces that converge in a single saree.
Today, Parsi embroidery remains a cherished heirloom tradition, worn at weddings and passed down with care. The Flower, the Labor, and the Sea invites viewers to see these garments anew, not only as objects of beauty, but as stitched records of movement, power, and survival across continents.
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Further Information:
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Image Credits:
Lead: Unknown Maker, Chinese. Jhabla (Tunic), ca. 1800 - 1900 Silk plain weave with silk satin-stitch embroidery. 67.6 cm (26 5/8 inches) (length). Bequest of Miss Lucy T. Aldrich 55.279. Courtesy of RISD Museum.
All further images as credited in photo captions.