The Parsi Gara Was Almost Lost. What Will Save It?

In May 2025, Natasha Poonawalla, the executive director of the Serum Institute of India, ascended the steps of the Met in New York City in a Manish Malhotra ensemble. The deep purple skirt was cut out of two vintage Parsi garas — silk saris covered in hand embroidery — one of them a century-old heirloom. For Parsi families (Poonawalla’s mother is Parsi), the gara is the heirloom of heirlooms. By some accounts, its origin is a love story: Parsi traders in China brought silk home as gifts for their wives. Later, when these items became symbols of excess, Parsi homes would cut up the treasured fabric. Today, they cut them up for the Met Gala.

The embroidery on Poonawalla’s black jacket was crafted from a single thread, featuring a Chinese warrior on a horse, a pagoda, poppies, vines, and trees. The gara’s history is riddled with its own tangled threads, involving the British, Canton, and opium traders. But as the craft increasingly disappears, the Parsi community is evaluating how to preserve it — and not everyone agrees.