I had loved Kanchipuram silk long before I sold a single saree — not only for its beauty, but for what it holds. A wedding. A first Deepavali in a new home. A photograph a daughter keeps.

As a designer, I kept watching women buy it badly. Surrounded by hundreds of choices, uncertain about authenticity, spending significantly, and still leaving without the one feeling that should come with a purchase like that.

So I do the choosing first.

It sounds simple. It isn't. It means seeing a great many sarees and letting most of them go.

A saree earns its place at Ayraa only as a complete piece — its silk, its colour and the way that colour is combined, its weave, its zari, its border, its pallu, and the presence it carries when it's worn. If one of those is beautiful and the rest merely acceptable, it doesn't come home with me. Being new isn't a reason. Being expensive isn't a reason. Being heavily worked isn't a reason.

I hold that standard because of what happens next. She will wear it to something she remembers for the rest of her life.

Every Ayraa saree is pure Kanchipuram silk, handwoven, with pure zari — the silk certified by the Silk Mark Organisation of India, the zari and the weave our word, and we will always tell you which is which. Each design is woven in very small numbers. Most are a single piece, which is why two women once wanted the same one.

I hadn't set out to build a business. I had set out to solve something I kept seeing. But somewhere in those first nine sarees, it became clear this was mine to build.

I wanted Ayraa to be something that was truly my own. I also wanted it to be something that could outlive me — a house women return to for the moments that matter, and one that creates real opportunities for the artisan and weaver families who keep this craft alive.