The House
An adda is where the city gathers.Ours gathers its finest cloth.
Urban Adda began as a standing appointment: a Delhi drawing room, a trunk of Banarasi silk, and the conviction that Indian cloth deserves western tailoring rather than translation. We work with looms in Varanasi, embroidery frames in Bareilly and Lucknow, and a single atelier in Mehrauli where every piece is finished, pressed and packed by name.
A note from the founders
We didn’t set out to build a label. We set out to keep a promise.
The promise was made to a weaver in Varanasi who told us his kadhua work was being undercut by powerloom copies of itself. We said that if he kept weaving the slow way, we would find the wearers who could tell the difference. That handshake is the whole business plan.
Everything since, the atelier in Mehrauli, our own courier, the insistence on cloth woven the slow way, follows from it. If a decision doesn’t honour the loom or the woman wearing its work, we don’t take it.
The founders
01
The loom first
Cloth is commissioned before it is designed. The weave dictates the silhouette, never the other way round.
02
Ready when you are
Every piece is finished and in stock, hand-packed and dispatched by our own courier within two working days of your order.
03
Our own hands to your door
No third-party couriers. Every order travels insured and hand-packed with the house team, from atelier to doorstep.