The House
Fewer pieces, made properly
ELARÉ began because a kameez could not survive five washes. It has grown into an atelier of eleven people who make eighteen styles a season in Lahore — and who will tell you when something is not right.
- Founded
- 2019 · Lahore
- Makers
- Eleven people
- Seasonal output
- Eighteen styles
Why we exist
A kurta that survived five washes
I grew up in a house where mending was normal and replacing was a decision. My mother could take a 1990s kurta apart, replace the lining, and it would outlast everything newer in the wardrobe. I could not find that anywhere in Lahore in 2019 — everything was beautiful and nothing lasted.
So I started with a simple constraint. If a seam cannot survive being opened and closed twice, we do not use it. That rule cost us money for about three years and it is the only reason the atelier still exists.
Everything here follows from that. We make fewer pieces. We buy better cloth. We pay our karigars properly and slowly. We would rather tell you a size will not work than sell you something that fails in month three.
— Sadaf Iqbal, Founder
How we got here
2019
One hundred and forty pieces
The first run was made in a two-room studio on Qarbal Road with three chikankari karigars and a single tailor. We sold out in nine days and then waited a year to make more.
2021
We stopped using a studio
Photographing a kameez on a white sweep flatters everything and explains nothing. From that season onward every lookbook has been shot on location, in daylight, with real clients.
2023
The atelier moved to Gulberg
A dedicated workroom with cutting tables, an embroidery floor, and a fitting room clients can actually sit in. Eleven people work there now.
2025
Eighteen pieces, and no more
We cap every season at eighteen styles. It limits revenue and it keeps the work honest.
How we work
Four things we will not compromise
- 01
We buy fabric before we design
Bolts are chosen first, washed, and checked under daylight. If the cloth is not right, the design does not happen — we have cancelled a piece over this more than once.
- 02
Hand work is not a marketing line
Chikankari, resham, cut-work and aarish are done by people we pay by the piece at rates we would not accept ourselves. Every maker is named in the pack.
- 03
Construction you only notice later
French seams, bound plackets, lined bodices, real pockets. These cost us time and margin now, and they are the reason clients write to us years afterwards.
- 04
We would rather sell out
No manufactured restocks, no second-quality runs sold as first. When a size is gone it is gone until the next season.
The atelier
The eleven people who make the clothes
Every maker is named on the pack that ships with your piece. You are welcome to visit and meet them — write to us and we will arrange it.
Sadaf Iqbal
Founder & Creative Director
Hina Yousaf
Head of Pattern Cutting
Zarina Bibi
Chikankari, Lead Artisan
Imran Ali
Cutting Master
Materials
Where the cloth comes from
Our cottons are woven in Faisalabad and stitched in Lahore. Khaddar comes from a family mill in Gujranwala we have used for four seasons. Mul for the chikankari is sourced inside Lahore, and the chiffon we use for dupattas is woven for us on the same looms we have used since 2021.
Silk blends and cut velvet are made for us and imported through Karachi. We can tell you the mill and the loom number, and we will — but we will not claim a heritage we do not have. Nothing in this house is described as Banarasi or Kashmiri, because neither is true.
“We make eighteen styles a season, and we will make fewer if the cloth is not right. That is the whole business model, and it works.”