Saturday 26 & Sunday 27 September 1-5 p.m.: Exhibition, Geeta Khandelwal, Miniature costumes of the Maharajas

The School of Historical Dress, 52 Lambeth Rd, London SE1 7PP, United Kingdom Geeta Khandelwal is a Mumbai-based textile artist and internationally recognised quilter whose work celebrates the extraordinary richness of India’s textile heritage. With more than four decades of experience, she is known for her remarkable miniature reconstructions of historic Indian garments inspired by the ceremonial and everyday dress of maharajas and royal courts from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Working from museum collections, historic photographs and traditional tailoring references, Geeta recreates garments at miniature scale using handwoven muslin, brocade, jamdani, pashmina and embroidered textiles gathered from across India over many years. Every piece is meticulously hand stitched and constructed with extraordinary precision, capturing the elegance, structure and craftsmanship of the original garments in tiny form. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum and the International Quilt Museum. The exhibition also features a collaboration with Dhruvita Paralkar, whose illustrations inspired a series celebrating the characters encountered on the streets of India. Combining Dhruvita’s expressive drawings with Geeta’s extensive archive of fabrics and needlework expertise, these works portray figures such as postmen, street sweepers and market traders with warmth, colour and extraordinary textile detail. Together, the pair create richly observed textiles that celebrate both everyday life and the enduring beauty of handcrafted cloth. Event Description This exhibition presents an interpretation of historic garments through miniature reconstruction of more than fifty hand-stitched men’s garments from the period 1750–1950 in scale 1:4, based on historic garments in the Calico Museum of Textiles. Several full-sized extant examples in silk and muslin will be displayed alongside the miniatures in this spectacular international celebration of Indian textile and dress heritage. Created over four years by Geeta Khandelwal and Dhruvita Paralkar, the collection explores the rich diversity of Indian royal and ceremonial attire through meticulously crafted miniature versions of jama, angarakha, chogha and sherwani from across the Indian subcontinent. Displayed like precious museum objects, the miniatures invite visitors to look closely at the technical mastery involved in translating historic garments into scaled-down forms. Intricate embellishment, piping, quilting and embroidery reveal the extraordinary craftsmanship behind each piece, while the contemporary collaborative works inspired by everyday life in India introduce a lively and colourful counterpoint. Together, the exhibition offers a vivid exploration of cloth, identity and cultural memory through stitch, scale and storytelling. There will also be a series of live online Zoom tours during the final week of the exhibition, with further details to be announced soon. Event Cancellation Policy All bookings are non-refundable. However, if you let us know that you are unable to attend an event you have booked at least two weeks before the event, we will open up your place. If we find another participant, you will be offered a credit note. Visit The School of Historical Dress Website Follow The School of Historical Dress on Instagram