The short version: Sheth London, a new womenswear label from London-trained pattern cutter Dimple Sheth, was announced on 16 October with seven ready-to-wear styles and 19 accessories drawn from Gujarati Patola and Tangaliya handweaving. Runs are capped at about 30 pieces a style, with clothes priced from £350 to £650.
Sheth London, the debut womenswear label of designer Dimple Sheth, was announced on 16 October with an online store and a pop-up still to come, according to FashionNetwork, which reported the launch from the brand’s press release. The first collection is small by design: seven ready-to-wear styles and 19 accessories, with production generally held to no more than 30 pieces per style. Ready-to-wear runs from £350 to £650; accessories start at £75.
The work is made with a 12-person, multi-generational artisan family in Gujarat that weaves, spins and beads the pieces. Over the 14 months before launch, the label paid for five additional handlooms and a dedicated weaving studio for that family, FashionNetwork reported. Sheth, who studied pattern cutting at London College of Fashion and worked at Boden, Palmer//Harding and Aspiga before returning to Gujarat, now splits her time between the two places. In the release she described the label as a way to “bring together two worlds, India and London, that have shaped me.”
At the time of writing, every item on the brand’s online store is listed as coming soon, and no pop-up date or location has been announced.
What is in the first collection
The collection is built around one hero piece, and the numbers attached to it are the most useful thing in the launch. The ‘Poppy’ beaded waistcoat is inspired by a roughly 100-year-old beaded textile handed down through Sheth’s grandmother. It carries about a kilogram of ceramic beads, takes 20 to 25 days to make, and only ten will exist. Around it sit a ‘Patola Cayenne Parka’, a streetwear-shaped jacket, and a ‘Chia Tangaliya Dress’ that leans further west in cut.
That spread — one slow, near-unique piece, a handful of wearable everyday shapes, and lower-priced accessories as the entry point — is the standard structure for a craft-led debut, and it is the right one. The accessories pay for the looms; the waistcoat tells you what the looms can do.
The crafts behind it
Patola and Tangaliya are two very different Gujarati weaving traditions, and knowing the difference is what lets you judge the clothes. Patola, from Patan in north Gujarat, is a double-ikat silk: both the warp and the weft threads are resist-dyed before weaving and must line up exactly so the pattern reads the same on both faces. Singapore Airlines’ SilverKris magazine, profiling the Salvi weaving families of Patan, reported that a single sari can occupy four weavers for six months or more, and that only three families there still practise the craft. A full Patan Patola sari sells for roughly INR 150,000 to 600,000.
Tangaliya, from Surendranagar district, works differently. Weavers knot a contrasting thread around the warp and press the knots together into raised dots, called danas, which build geometric motifs in a plain weave, according to Fibre2Fashion’s account of the craft’s Geographical Indication registration. It is traditionally a household craft of the Dangasia community, woven on pit looms in the home, across roughly two dozen villages.
Both are protected names in India. Both can also be imitated by print. That matters for the next section.
The Faz read
The detail that separates this launch from the usual heritage-craft press release is the looms. A label that funds five handlooms and a studio before it has sold a single garment is putting capital into the production side rather than the marketing side, which is the opposite of how most fashion launches spend their first money. We made the same argument about Chanel’s manufacturing investment in August: the capital expenditure line is the most honest number in fashion, and at Sheth London’s scale, five looms is that line.
It is worth being honest about the risks, too. A 30-piece cap per style is a healthy constraint, but it also means very thin revenue in year one, and many small labels run out of cash before their second collection. We set out what separates a survivor from a casualty in how to tell a small brand that will last from one that won’t; the short version is that restraint on growth is a good sign, and Sheth London is showing it.
The other thing the launch gets right is price honesty. £350 to £650 for handwoven ready-to-wear is not cheap, but it is a price that can carry the labour. Compare it with the mid-tier mass market, where “artisan-inspired” prints sell at a fraction of that and the artisan is nowhere in the supply chain. Skip that tier entirely; it is paying for the look of the craft, not the craft.
What it means if you buy this kind of piece
The reader who wants handwoven Indian craft without overpaying for a story should ask three questions, of this label or any other.
One. Is it woven or printed? A Patola or Tangaliya pattern can be screen-printed onto fabric in an afternoon. Turn the garment over: true double ikat shows the pattern on both faces with the characteristic slight blur at the edges of each motif, and Tangaliya dots are raised and knotted, not flat.
Two. Which part is handmade? A fusion piece may use a handwoven panel on a machine-made body. That is a legitimate construction, but it should be priced as one. Ask the brand which fabric in the garment came off the handloom.
Three. Who is named? Sheth London names a family, a region and a number of looms. That is the level of detail to expect. A brand that says “artisans” and nothing else is telling you less than it knows.
FashionNetwork’s report does not say whether the Patola in the collection is double ikat, single ikat or a Patola-inspired weave, so that is a fair question to put to the brand before buying a Patola piece. The craft notes above are a general guide, not a verdict on these clothes, which no one outside the brand has yet handled.
If you are building a wardrobe through named craft traditions, as we did with Adlib’s Ibiza lace, this is the channel to watch: independent designers working directly with workshops, small runs, prices that reflect the hours.
What happens next
The online store is live with products marked as coming soon, and Sheth London has said a pop-up will follow; neither a sale date nor a pop-up venue had been published at the time of writing. With ten Poppy waistcoats in total, the hero piece will sell out or sit unsold quickly, and either outcome will tell the label something about its price. The more telling test comes with the second collection: whether the five new looms are kept busy, and whether the run sizes stay at 30.
Where this leaves you
Sheth London is a small launch, and it should be judged as one. But it is built the right way round: workshop first, looms funded, quantities capped, prices that can pay the people doing the work. Too many heritage-craft labels are marketing exercises with a weaving photo on the About page. This one has put its first money into the loom shed. Watch it, ask the three questions, and buy the piece whose making you can verify.
The next move is yours.
Sources: FashionNetwork, Sheth London launch · University of the Arts London, Dimple Sheth graduate portfolio · SilverKris, Patan Patola · Fibre2Fashion, Tangaliya GI registration
