Our Story
Muzaffarpur, Bihar · Est. 2024 · GI-Tagged Art Form
We don't just sell clothing. We carry the prayers, stories, and hands of Bihar's artisans into your wardrobe.
After 30 years in fashion, I came back to Bihar, not to slow down, but to finally make something that mattered.
Founder, TarshThe Art Behind Every Piece
Every Tarsh piece is a 25-century-old art form, made entirely by hand. Here is what goes into it.
Bold colour fills with fine outlines, the most vibrant of Madhubani styles. Our artisans use pigments that stay vivid wash after wash for years. Bharni paintings are traditionally associated with joy, celebration and abundance, making them perfect for festive wear.
Peacocks, fish, lotus, the sun, Radha-Krishna, Durga, the tulsi. Every motif in Madhubani carries precise meaning drawn from Hindu mythology and the Madhubani region's oral traditions, passed through women artists for over 25 centuries. When you wear a Tarsh piece, you wear a story.
Every Tarsh piece ships with an authenticity card signed by the artisan who painted it: their name, their village, the technique used, and the motif's meaning. It is not a marketing insert. It is a record of a real human being's work, attached to the garment permanently.
The Journey
Each kurta takes 3 to 5 days to complete by a single artisan.
5 steps — tap each stage to explore
We source handloom cotton or silk directly from Bihari weavers. The fabric is pre-washed and sun-dried to open the weave and accept natural pigments evenly. A step that cannot be skipped.
The artisan sketches the outline freehand (directly on cloth) using charcoal sticks. No templates. No stencils. The composition comes from memory and a lifetime of practice. This step alone can take a full day.
Colour is applied layer by layer using brushes and pigments. The layering is what gives Madhubani paintings their impossible depth.
The painted fabric is laid flat in direct sunlight for 24 hours. UV exposure bonds the pigments into the textile fibres, making them wash-fast and colour-fast. No chemical fixatives. Just the same sun that has cured these paintings for centuries.
The finished kurta is inspected, ironed on the reverse, and packed. The artisan's certificate card is written by hand and placed inside the package. Then it begins its journey to you.
"Each piece is made by one artist's hands, start to finish. That is why no two are identical."
What Customers Say
I wore this to a wedding and everyone wanted to know where it was from. The peacock motif is incredibly detailed. You can feel the care in every brushstroke. I've never received so many compliments on a single piece of clothing in my life.
Finally a brand that honours Madhubani art without cheapening it. My mother, who is from Darbhanga, actually cried when she saw how authentic the motifs were. She said it reminded her of the paintings on her grandmother's walls.
The artisan card that came with my order made it so personal. I know exactly who painted my kurta: her name, her village, the technique she used. That connection to a real artist is priceless. I've ordered three more since.
The quality is exceptional. I was worried the hand-painted colours might fade after washing but they haven't . Three months in and it looks exactly as it did when it arrived. The natural dyes are clearly superior to synthetic ones.
I gifted this to my sister for her birthday and she was speechless. The packaging alone, handmade paper, the artisan's handwritten card, feels like receiving a letter from another era. Tarsh understands what luxury really means.
I bought one kurta on a whim and now it's the first thing I reach for every festival. The cotton is so soft and breathable, even through a long Chennai afternoon, and the hand-painted border still turns heads at every family gathering. I'm already saving up for the next collection.
@tarshapparels
Reels, new drops & behind-the-brush moments from our artisans in Madhubani.
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