I think of my father in many ways.

For a large part of my life, he was a protector.

At work, I grew up watching him do extraordinary things. His instinct for colour, design, texture I still don’t fully understand it.

In 2011, I took a trip with him to Hannover, Germany for the Domotex rug fair which was the largest rug show in the world at the time. That trip stayed with me.

I saw the kind of work he was putting out.

I saw him win for the best modern collection.

And I saw how far ahead he was from everything else around.

That trip changed how I looked at this industry.

It stopped feeling like a business.

And started feeling like a way of creating art.

What has stayed constant is what I’ve learnt from him.

And what I’m still trying to understand everyday that I work along side him.

I will be honest about what today feels like.
Proud.

Proud of the Master weavers who made every piece at HōmAnAn.

And grateful to Anubha for building a space worthy of it.

The First Layer is open at HōmAnAn, Greater Kailash II, Delhi.

Today and tomorrow. 11am to 5pm.

This is a moment I have been looking forward to for a very long time.

Understorey

Most people think hand-knotted rugs are made from wool or silk.

We work with over 100 different raw materials.

Mongolian cashmere. Pure hand-spun silk. Pure Hand-carded wool. Each one catches light differently. Each one feels completely different underfoot.

Come and experience the difference in person.
9th and 10th May at HōmAnAn, Greater Kailash II, Delhi.

Understorey | Anubha Aneja

We decided to name this show The First Layer because a rug is exactly that.

The first decision in any room before the furniture, the walls, the lighting. 
And yet in most homes it is chosen last. We wanted to change that conversation.

The First Layer is Understorey‘s first ever showcase in India. Hand-knotted rugs made by master weavers in Jaipur – each piece carrying months of making, each one a quiet expression of a craft that has been alive in this city for centuries.

In Delhi, 9th and 10th May. HōmAnAn, Greater Kailash II.
DM me if you would like to come.

Anubha Aneja

A hand-knotted rug takes months to make.
Sometimes close to a year.

The weaver who makes it ties every single knot by hand, carries the pattern in memory. Makes thousands of decisions a day that nobody will ever see but that determine everything about what the rug becomes.

Next week that work is in Delhi for the first time.

9th and 10th May. HōmAnAn, Greater Kailash II.

Understorey | Anubha

Anubha walked into our workshop in Jaipur last month.
She sat with our weavers, watched them work, asked questions most visitors never think to ask.

That afternoon she understood something no photograph had shown her.
The art doesn’t begin when the rug is finished.
It begins the moment the first knot is tied.

Delhi gets to see that work next week.
9th and 10th May. HōmAnAn, Greater Kailash II.

Understorey

For the first time, Understorey rugs will be shown in a retail space.
At HōmAnAn.

The collection is called One Of A Kind.

It came out of a very specific moment.

During the tough tariff phase, some of our best weavers, the ones who work on 11/11 qualities found themselves without work.

We didn’t want to wait for things to change.
We decided to build something for them.

What started as that decision turned into a collection we couldn’t have planned.

We worked with repurposed yarn and developed a dyeing process where no two outcomes can be the same.

Once a shade is achieved, there’s no way to arrive at it again.

So every piece you’ll see is the only version of itself.

Hand-knotted rugs are not just seen, they’re experienced.
In the weight, the texture, the way they come alive in a space.

We invite you to experience the magic of hand-knotted rugs with us.

8, May 2026 (Invite Only)
GK 2, New Delhi

For the first time, Understorey‘s hand-knotted rugs will be on display in India at HōmAnAn, Delhi’s most considered design space.

If you have ever wanted to understand what generations of craft feels like underfoot, this is your moment.

Come and see us.

8th May 2026. (Invite Only)
Greater Kailash II.

#artshow

Something is happening in Delhi next month that I have been looking forward to for a long time.
HōmAnAn and Understorey are presenting a show together.
Just the two of us.

It will be the first show HōmAnAn has done since opening. And Anubha chose to do it specifically with Understorey.
That is not something I take lightly.

We are bringing some of our most extraordinary new work to Delhi. Pieces that have never been seen before. Each one a complete conversation between a client’s imagination and a master weaver’s hands.

If you have ever read one of my posts and wondered what a hand-knotted rug actually feels like in a space, this is your answer.
Not in a photograph. Not on a screen.
In person. Underfoot. In one of the most beautifully considered spaces in Delhi.

We will share the details of the show shortly.

Anubha has built something that is genuinely worth experiencing.
We are honoured to be the ones she chose to launch it with.

Most people who love beautiful interiors have never experienced a hand-knotted rug the way it deserves to be experienced.
Not in a photograph or on a website.

In a real room. Underfoot. Surrounded by everything that belongs with it.
That is about to change, if you are in Delhi.

We are delighted to introduce our collaboration with HōmAnAn – Delhi’s first design showhouse, founded by the extraordinarily creative Anubha Laroiya Aneja.

A fully lived-in 4,000 sq ft home in Greater Kailash II. 40 of India’s finest homegrown design brands. Furniture, lighting, art, soft furnishings not displayed, but lived with.

When I first walked into Anubha’s space, I felt something I hadn’t expected.
Recognition.

Here was someone who believed exactly what we believe. That luxury is felt before it is understood. That an object earns its place in a home through experience, not through a price tag. That Indian craft at its finest deserves to be presented on its own terms.

Our aesthetic values aligned immediately.
This collaboration means something personal to me.

For 110 years, our family has been making hand-knotted rugs in Jaipur. For most of those years, the finest pieces we made left India quietly into homes in London, New York, Dubai.

The world found what we made long before India got to experience it the way it deserves.
HōmAnAn changes that.

For the first time, you can walk into a room in Delhi and experience Understorey the way it was always meant to be experienced.
In a home. As it should be.

We are finally coming home.

The most sustainable thing you can do is stop buying things.
But when you do need to buy, buy once.

The home décor industry produces billions of square metres of rugs every year.
Most of them are replaced within 3-5 years not because they broke.
Because they looked tired.
Because trends moved.
Because they were never built to last.

A hand-knotted rug doesn’t work that way.
The structure tightens over time, it doesn’t loosen.
Natural fibres age with dignity.

A good rug at 20 years looks earned, not exhausted.
Sustainability isn’t just about how something is made.
It’s about how long it stays.

A rug that lasts 40 years has a carbon footprint that’s a fraction of one replaced every 5.

At Understorey, we don’t design for trends.
We design for decades.

That’s not a sustainability strategy.
It’s just the honest way to build something.

Today is Handmade Day, and I want to celebrate the people behind the most extraordinary craft in the world.
The weavers. 5,000 of them work with us.

They wake up every day and do something that no machine has ever replicated. That no algorithm can approximate. That no shortcut can produce.

They tie 8,000 knots by hand in a single day.
They hold complex patterns in their memory for nine months without losing the thread.

They feel a tension inconsistency in the pile before it becomes visible to anyone else.
That is not a skill.
That is a superpower built across a lifetime.

And the world is beginning to understand what it has.
Buyers who know what exceptional looks like are coming directly to Jaipur.

The conversation around handmade has changed. People are asking better questions. Wanting to know where their beautiful things come from.

Understanding that the object on their floor carries the hours, the patience, and the knowledge of a person who gave their life to one craft.
That shift means everything.

I have spent my life in workshops watching master weavers work.
I am proud to be the custodian of this art form.
Of this knowledge. This heritage. These hands.

To carry forward what my great-grandfather began in 1916 and what three generations built after him is the greatest privilege of my life.

To every weaver who has given their skill, their patience, and their years to this craft – this day belongs to you.

Happy Handmade Day.

📌 Pic 1 (Me with Iqbal ji one of our oldest employees who is our weaving manager)

Understorey