It’s well past midnight. We’re huddled around a charming quarter plate from the newly launched Darjeeling collection stacked with melt-in-mouth Lucknowi galoutis. Anita Lal, lovingly referred to as AL, joins our chatty circle. The galoutis are instantly forgotten, as we relish every word she says in her even tempered voice, laced with a child-like naughtiness.
We congratulate her on the swimming success of Good Earth’s newest boutique in the City of Nawabs. I ask her, “Are you excited, tired, or relieved?”
She appreciates her team’s incredible efforts and credits Adil Ahmad’s creative vision, and then gently murmurs, “Though I’d like to go home now to what I’m missing most.”
Her husband, I ask. “My Mac” she clarifies, “I’m itching to be in my kaftan, make myself a cup of tea, and start working.”
This, to me, summarises Anita Lal.
I was 10 years old when I first visited Good Earth — an urban design haven with louvred wooden shutters, exposed brick walls, and plum-stained glass windows. Mum was shopping for a dinner set, as I was in the thrilling early flirts of what’s become an everlasting love for crockery, cutlery, and everything in between. Bougainvillea popping out of a kansa vase, placed over an ornate Udaipur green coffee table layered with coffee table books, candles in dainty glass votives, lanterns, and mogra. A naive me assumed this was what being grown-up looked like. Today, I save to spend at Good Earth; something my husband tsk-tsks about.
There’s something about AL, no? She is the very raison d’être for the brand at-large. As a studio potter in 1996, she wanted to bridge the craft of village potters and urban consumers with a keen liking for contemporary design. She ensures a distinctively Indian aesthetic runs across every Good Earth showcase. She oozes and embodies the brand’s vernacular of timeless luxury and good taste. It’s almost like the collections serve her personal use and style of living — from Good Earth’s homeware and serveware to clothes and perfume. Intrinsically, she’s a host and her world of gracious entertaining includes paisley tea cosies keeping a pot of chai hot and ever-ready, tiger-and-stripes cocktail napkins to dab the remains of a hot samosa, fresh local flowers, music, giant silk cushions, all presented in an idyllic in-and-outdoor setting. It’s everything you want when entertaining at home. This is a feeling that finds resonance across quarters. “Uff! everything at Good Earth awakens the Martha in me” is the common sentiment heard across their stores and brand parties.
Since inception, Good Earth has positioned itself as a luxury Indian design house that explores handcrafted design from a keenly Indian perspective. The brand story finds provenance in the brand matriarch’s version of khatirdari that includes local tradition, etiquette, and using that social moment to spotlight local craftspeople and design. Her love for India permeates across the length and breadth of everything the brand does. As if a solemn promise to the land that enabled a wildly inspiring career that she started in her mid-forties.
Take for example, her latest venture in Lucknow. Partnering with Lucknow-based designer Adil Ahmad, she interlaces the store design with focal design points from the city’s rich artistry of Awadhi architecture.
“My conversations with AL are fluid and free flowing. We bounce ideas off each other effortlessly and blend our visions to create a space that truly resonates with the cultural essence of the city,” Ahmad shares.
The boutique is peppered with details from heritage structures such as the Rumi Darwaza and the imambaras. She, and her team, are continually inspired by local design, colour, and tradition which is well reflected in the store’s grand proportions of cinquefoil and pointed arches, white marble checkerboard flooring (patang chal), a marble water fountain inspired by the Mughal charbagh, signature greens of Lucknow, and chikankari sheer white curtains.
Management gurus advise entrepreneurs to solve for a personal issue, and then grow that into a scalable model. AL seems to have done just that. Good Earth is the result of a personal need for beautiful and handcrafted design, and has managed to attract a robust consumer demand for local luxury design retail. This brand found a way to speak to the perpetually busy Indian to add a quality of timelessness, beauty and elegance to our living spaces. Distinctively Indian luxury that we didn’t know we need but it makes our life richer once we have it.
Today, with effective technological advancements and resources at hand, building an office in Mumbai whilst living in Delhi feels achievable. AL did that in 1996, launching the first store in Kemps Corner whilst based out of New Delhi. What started as a passion project is now valued at c.INR 200 crores with local and global presence. An instinctive desire to put local design at the forefront seems to have formed a proud moment of reckoning for India and Indian design. Is this possibly India’s first cross-category luxury brand?
As she continues to groove to the tune of design and art, it’s evident that my favourite design doyenne is having a ball and it’s only right we join her on the dance floor.
