Sandhya Garg — Inside the Studio
Behind the Prints: Where the Designs Actually Come From
A Char Bagh · A Jharokha · A Zellij Wall · Drawing to Cloth · 10 Picks · XS–3XL
Quick Answer
Every print in this collection is drawn by hand before it becomes fabric, and each one starts from a specific thing rather than a mood. A char bagh is a Mughal garden divided into four quarters by water channels — a real architectural plan, not a decorative idea. A jharokha is an overhanging enclosed balcony in Rajasthani palaces, built with a pierced stone screen so that light entering it falls in patterns. Zellij is Moroccan geometric tilework, cut by hand from glazed terracotta. Those are the sources. What follows is what each one actually is, and how a piece of architecture becomes a length of cloth.
"Inspired by travel" is one of the emptiest phrases in fashion. It usually means somebody looked at a photograph. The more interesting question is what the thing actually was — because most of these traditions are not decoration, they are solutions to problems, and knowing the problem changes how you see the pattern.
I trained in womenswear at London College of Fashion and I draw every print in this collection myself. Below: three source traditions, what each one is for, and the pieces that came out of them. For the mechanics of getting a drawing onto fabric, that has its own post.
Morocco: Zellij, and Geometry Without Pictures
Zellij is the mosaic tilework found across Moroccan architecture — glazed terracotta cut by hand into individual shapes and assembled face-down into geometric fields. The craftsmen who cut it are called maalems, and the training runs for years, because the shapes are not squares. They are stars, chevrons, elongated hexagons, each cut to a template so that the whole thing locks together with no gaps.
What makes it interesting for a print designer is the constraint behind it. Islamic decorative tradition largely avoided figurative imagery, so ornament went into geometry instead — and it went extraordinarily deep, producing symmetries that European mathematics did not formally describe until centuries later. The pattern is not a substitute for a picture. It is its own subject.
Painting the Morocco print. The scalloped arch shapes are drawn from zellij tilework and the eight-point star is one of the oldest motifs in the tradition — here filled with palm trees and flowers rather than tile.[SANDHYA: two or three sentences in your own words about Morocco and these prints — when you went, what you actually looked at, what you brought back. If you would rather not, delete this box entirely; the section reads perfectly without it.]
India: The Char Bagh and the Jharokha
A char bagh — literally "four gardens" — is a Persian and Mughal garden plan in which a square is quartered by two intersecting water channels. It is the layout at the Taj Mahal and at Humayun's Tomb, and it is a design idea rather than a planting scheme: symmetry, water at the centre, and a pattern that repeats outward. As a print structure it is close to perfect, because it already contains its own grid.
A jharokha is an overhanging enclosed balcony, found across Rajasthani palace architecture — the Hawa Mahal in Jaipur is essentially a facade of them. The screens are cut in jaali, pierced stonework, and the purpose is practical as well as beautiful: the perforations let air through and light in while keeping the interior shaded and private. Light passing through a jaali lands on the floor as a pattern. That is the print, and it existed before anybody drew it.
The same idea worked up in pen as an India Postage Study. The notebook lists what went in: vintage stamps, architecture, elephants, floral details, rupee notes, travel ephemera.[SANDHYA: your own connection to these — you grew up with this architecture, which nobody else selling "Mughal-inspired" prints can say. Two or three sentences. This is the most valuable paragraph on the page.]
A jaali screen was solving a problem — air, light, privacy, heat. The pattern on the floor was a consequence. Most of the best ornament works like that.
Barcelona: Gaudí and the Broken Tile
Antoni Gaudí worked in a technique called trencadís — mosaic assembled from broken ceramic and glass fragments rather than cut tiles. It is the surface of the benches at Park Güell and much of Casa Batlló, and the logic is the opposite of zellij: where Moroccan tilework is exact and repeating, trencadís is irregular by design, using offcuts and shards so that no two areas match.
Both traditions produce colour fields out of small pieces. One does it through order, the other through controlled chaos. Putting them next to each other is the most useful thing this collection does — it is why some prints here repeat on a strict grid and others deliberately do not.
Gold scrollwork over pink, lilac and cobalt. The ground colour is laid first in broad strokes, then the gold line is painted on top — not the other way round.
[SANDHYA: Barcelona, in your words. What you noticed, or what you were working on at the time. Delete if you would rather not.]
The Source Edit · Hand-Drawn Prints · XS to 3XL
Ten Pieces and Where They Started
Named for the places and the architecture they came from — which is also why the names are worth reading.
Morocco — Geometry and Desert Light
India — Gardens, Screens and Palace Light
Europe — Versailles, Barcelona and the Ornamental Line
Current styles XS · S · M · L · XL · XXL · XXXL · Archive pieces in limited sizes as noted · Custom sizing available
From a Drawing to a Length of Cloth
[SANDHYA: three or four sentences on how you actually work — sketchbook or tablet, how long a print takes, how many versions get thrown away, how you decide on a colourway. Plain and specific is better than lyrical. This is the paragraph that makes the whole page credible.]
What is true regardless: a print has to survive being cut. A pattern that looks balanced on a flat screen can fall apart across a side seam, disappear into a gather, or land somewhere unfortunate on the body. That is the difference between designing a pattern and designing a garment, and it is why the scale of the same drawing changes from a mini to a maxi. There is more on the mechanics in how our prints are made.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a char bagh?
A Persian and Mughal garden plan whose name means "four gardens" — a square divided into quarters by two intersecting water channels. It is the layout at the Taj Mahal and Humayun's Tomb. As a print structure it is unusually useful, because the symmetry and the repeat are already built into the plan.
What is a jharokha?
An overhanging enclosed balcony in Rajasthani palace architecture, typically fronted with a jaali — a pierced stone screen. The Hawa Mahal in Jaipur is essentially a facade of them. The perforations let air and light through while keeping the interior shaded and private, and the light that passes through lands on the floor as a pattern.
What is zellij?
Moroccan mosaic tilework, cut by hand from glazed terracotta into individual geometric shapes and assembled into interlocking fields. Because Islamic decorative tradition largely avoided figurative imagery, ornament developed extraordinary geometric depth instead — producing symmetries European mathematics did not formally describe until far later.
How is zellij different from Gaudí's mosaic?
They are near opposites. Zellij is exact, repeating and cut to template. Gaudí worked in trencadís, mosaic assembled from broken ceramic and glass fragments, deliberately irregular so no two areas match. Both build colour fields from small pieces — one through order, the other through controlled chaos.
Are your prints original?
Yes — every print is drawn by hand in the studio before it becomes fabric, and made in limited runs. That is also why sizes sell out unevenly and why some pieces do not return. It is the trade-off for work that is done slowly rather than licensed from a pattern library.
Why does the same print appear on several garments?
Because scale changes everything. The same drawing enlarged for a maxi and reduced for a mini behaves like two different patterns — the eye reads density rather than motif. Building a family from one drawing at several scales is how a collection stays coherent without repeating itself.
How do you place a print on a garment?
Carefully, and it is the step most people never think about. A pattern that looks balanced flat can break across a side seam, vanish into a gather, or land badly on the body. Placement is a garment problem rather than a print problem, and it is where most of the work goes.
Keep Reading
The Process
How Our Prints Are Made
Sketch to cloth, step by step.
The Question
Lineage or Borrowing?
How to tell the difference when you shop.
How We Make It
Sustainable Fashion
Why the runs are limited.
The Designer
About Sandhya Garg
London College of Fashion to Project Runway.
About the Writer
Sandhya Garg is a Project Runway Season 13 designer who won two challenges on the show and presented her collection at Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week. She studied womenswear at London College of Fashion and worked at Alexander McQueen, Gucci, Liberty London, and Alice Temperley. She draws every print in the collection by hand — featured in Marie Claire, Elle, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue online, in sizes XS–3XL with custom sizing available.
Project Runway · Vogue · Marie Claire · XS–3XL
Every print started as a drawing.
Sandhya Garg is a Los Angeles boutique creating limited-edition artisanal dresses in original hand-drawn prints, hand embroidery and heritage textiles. Sizes XS–3XL, shipped from Scottsdale within 1–3 days.
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