I flew to Bathinda thinking I knew what I was there for. Quality checks. Silhouette selection.
Enough craft knowledge to speak confidently to buyers in SoHo. I had a list. I had a plan.
Then I walked into Ishita’s house and all of that went out the window.
A Home That Is Also a Museum
There is art in every corner of this house the walls, the terrace, the hallways, even the
bathroom. It is not arranged or curated. It simply exists, the way furniture does, the way light does. Walking through the rooms and out into the fields, I kept thinking: I am in a museum. A joyful, maximalist, completely alive museum where the dogs run free and the parathas are always hot. The aesthetic is genuinely boho - chic not the Instagram version, but the real one, where beauty accumulates over years because the people living there cannot stop making beautiful things.This is not a brand mood board. This is just how this family lives.
Art as a First Language
Ishita’s mother received me with the kind of warmth that makes you feel immediately at
home. Within minutes there was food parathas, khichdi, kadhi chawal. I gained what felt
like a meaningful amount of weight in those two days and have absolutely no regrets. This is Punjab. You eat.But it was one story she told me over that table that I keep coming back to. Her son, she said, would doodle the most heartfelt apology on toilet paper rather than walk up to her and say sorry in person. She said it with the particular mix of exasperation and pride that only mothers have. And I thought that is Capisvirleo, in one sentence.
Art is how this family communicates. How they love, how they apologise, how they process
the world. Not as a hobby as a primary language. Ishita’s grandmother carries this too. Since retirement, she has used embroidery and crocheting to hold her days together some of her work finds its way into Capisvirleo pieces. Three generations of women, one thread running through all of them.
The Shirt With Seven Techniques
On my second day, Ishita walked me through a single shirt.
One shirt. Seven completely different craft techniques natural dyeing, cross stitch,
embroidery, appliqué, cutting and polishing, and finally sewing in the embellishments. Each one distinct, each demanding its own tradition and skill. The seams between them are nearly invisible, which is the point. Capisvirleo’s philosophy is straightforward: India has centuries of textile traditions, and they refuse to pick just one. They pull from different art forms phulkari embroidery, natural dye work, surface craft from the Malwa region and run wild with it. The result is something that doesn’t sit in any neat category, which is exactly why it stands out. And everything is zero waste. Not as a talking point as a way of thinking. Nothing gets thrown away when everything you work with is precious.
The Woman Behind It
Ishita is a NIFT Gandhinagar graduate with close to twelve years in fashion she cut her
teeth at major design houses in Delhi before returning to Punjab and founding Capisvirleo in 2021. That training is visible in the work. The construction is considered, the finishing is
precise, and she speaks about garments with a technical fluency that only comes from
years of serious practice. But what struck me most was something else entirely.
Watching her talk about the clothes, I realised she is not operating from a commercial brain. She would pick up a piece and explain it the way someone describes a painting they love with this quiet intensity, this need to make sure you understood exactly what went into it and why. At one point she said something I keep thinking about: “I don’t even think about sales. I’m just making clothes because they’re so beautiful, and it’s in my head that I need to push them out.” And then: “I don’t like being boxed. I just let go and run free with ideas, with crafts, with structure.” Capisvirleo is a direct reflection of Ishita and her relationship with her family. That is the centre of it. Not a brand strategy, not a market gap a person who grew up in a house where art was the first language, trained for a decade to understand craft at its deepest level, and then came home and made something that could only have come from her.
Women Holding Their Own
Here is what I want to say plainly. In many of these communities, women are made to feel secondary. This is not history it is the present. Capisvirleo pushes back against it in the way that counts: quietly, consistently, in the details. The family knows everyone in their workforce by name. They provide access to education. They support women with resources that build real financial independence. The thinking is not complicated: you cannot build a lasting craft ecosystem by extracting from the community. Strengthen the root, and everything above it stands solid. This is also how you slow unnecessary urbanisation by making it possible for a life of craft and dignity to exist where people already are. The threads of unity here are not just aesthetic. They run through families, villages, and generations of women who have always spoken through what they make.
What We’re Bringing to New York
We are bringing embroidered silk and cotton shirts with detailing that stops people mid-
step. Easy summer pieces. Things that are vibrant, feminine, maximalist completely in your face in the best way. Things that evoke joy. But more than the pieces, we are bringing a story. A family whose son doodles apologies on toilet paper. A grandmother who crochets to hold herself together. A daughter who turned a single shirt over in my hands and showed me seven ways of making something beautiful. The Threads of Unity curation we’re bringing to New York celebrates exactly that family, craft, colour, and women holding their own
Capisvirleo × Mṛjā. New York, June 9.
