Dawn to dusk this group of nearly twenty women and one patient husband persevered, never letting exhaustion, hunger or fabric fatigue  dampen their will to enter just one more shop.

Dig, dig, dig, that’s what you have to do in these shops, said Fine to me, the obvious weak link in the pack. Always haggle! And of course, you should NOT get things made but I Do it as I can’t resist. Sometimes it works and it is fabulous.  Sometimes I cannot believe just how they screwed up!! I have a true love hate with the process. I think the key is to make pieces, have them in time before you leave so you can make alterations if necessary.

Like an archeologist on the scent of an old bone, this group of women – many working in the design world – somehow knew that under that pile of random materials, lay the perfect quilt, bedspread or tea cosy that they’d been hankering after for years.

It’s a textile frenzy, insanity but it’s worth it, said Fine, who has been to India over fifty times in the last 19 years.

While Fine may live between Dallas and Manhattan, her heart is firmly based in the exotic east, where she draws much inspiration for her covetable textile line.

Fine and the Texan athletes flaunted their purchasing prowess in Rajasthan’s shopping mecca Jaipur. We flew to Jaipur at the crack of dawn from lake-filled Udaipur and spent the day visiting several of Fine’s favorite haunts, never bothering to check in to our hotel, put our feet up, lie by the pool, sit. No, we had work to do.

 I always go to Anokhi, the Zara of India with blockprint designs at dirt cheap prices, said Fine. And I love the carmelized onion, Gorgonzola pizza, orange cake and fresh pomegranate juice for lunch at the Organic Cafe next door.

For the sheer quantity of choice and range of colors, Fine likes two Jaipur spots, blockprint nirvana Ridhi Sidhi

and antique fabric and vintage retailer Saurashtra Textiles. Below is Fine’s Dallas bedroom with a bedspread from Saurashtra Textiles. Her digging paid off. The paintings in her bedroom are by Sunita Kumar , a close friend and confidante of  Mother Teresa.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, for those who like small, less overwhelming places (ME!) Fine recommends Brigitte Singh where we saw blockprinting in action.

We spent the afternoon dazzled by jewels at the renown Gem Palace, Munnu and Gem Paradise – all within spitting distance of each other. I did quite well at Gem Paradise where I thought their prices beat the competition.

Time for a tea break? Hardly. Next shop til you drop was Hot Pink, where I bought some chic linen men’s shirts and a few oversized beach bags for my daughters.

In that same complex Fine pointed us to a new designer Ayush Kasliwal where I stocked up on original presents for the home- bronze shaped gheckos that double as bottle openers, wood carvings, pretty ceramics. We then went to buzzy Bar Palladio for a deserved cocktail

and what I foolishly thought would be the conclusion to our day. Hah!

Fine has the energy of a Labrador puppy. She  took the diehards to her favorite outdoor dining spot – the restaurant at Oberoi-owned Rajvilas, about half an hour outside of town. Remember we rose at 5am, took a flight and had not stopped touring, spending and yakking all day. I needed a vacation from my vacation.

That’s my favorite hotel. Mr Oberoi really gets it. It’s all very simple, cottons, made in India. It’s very luxurious, but sort of humble too. It’s not trying to be European, explained Fine.

And for lunch the next day we ate on the old style terrace of this two hundred year-old haven  Samode Haveli.

It’s charming and not over-designed, Fine said.

Note to gem enthusiasts: Lisa’s absolute favorite jewelry shop is in Delhi, not Jaipur.

If you want really fine things, my friends the Bharany’s are the best.  The father was a great antique textile designer. They have the best jewelry, the best.

While in Delhi Fine likes to visit the restored, sprawling  Bikaner House spread over eight acres in Lutyen’s Delhi and with interesting exhibitions.

You can see inside great mansions, how people actually lived. So many former maharajah places are government-owned and in disrepair, but not this one.

And for fashion she has her eye on up and coming Parisian designer Cecile Dascali. A final top tip from the chief:

I  think it is important to go some place rural. The main cities have grown so much and with the rise in tourism and the growing Indian middle class you really don’t see the traditional India as much in cities today. Go some place off the radar or difficult to get to. I recently went to Gwalior and Orcha.  After over 50 trips to India, that was as exciting as my first trip.

 January, 2018

The post Top Tips from Top Shopper: Lisa Fine on Jaipur appeared first on Elena Bowes.

but my eldest daughter Kate, an interior designer in Manhattan,  assured me Fine was good.

Cool, I thought, I like fabrics.

Like a lamb to the slaughter.

I guess my first clue that this trip wasn’t pure sightseeing with a pashmina tossed in here or there was when I met the 19-strong group, almost all of whom  hailed from Houston, Dallas,San Antonio and Fort Worth, plus Louisville, Kentucky which is pretty much the same thing. I was a tad confused – had I unwittingly joined some Texan Delegation? Was Delhi Dallas’ twin city or something? Fine print has never been my strong suit.

But Indian prints, here we come.

I soon learned that these women and one charming husband- – all very chic and groomed with trunks of equally chic luggage to my single carry-on (which drew simultaneous gasps of admiration and horror) –  had signed up for the trip, not because their youngest was deserting the mother ship, but because of their devotion to  the dynamic and fun Mississippi-native Lisa Fine who sources many of her designs from India, a country she adores and knows inside out.

While Fine may live between Dallas and New York with a past stint in Paris, she still sounds like she could be sipping Mint Juleps on her Hattiesburg porch.

Listen y’all…, purrs Fine, and we do happily.

Fine at work…

and at play with best friend Cici…

Fine led this group of interior designers, architects, general shop-til-you-drop Texans and one clueless outsider to her  favorite haunts in Rajasthan, especially shopping mecca Jaipur. The group never tired of a chance to see one more print, one more rug, bedspread, napkin, patterned tea cosy.

Houston designer Ann Wolf – the cat who got the cream…

Louisville lovely Kelly Cohen got the gem

Mari McAlister from Santa Barbara got the earrings

And New York designer Charlotte Moss got the country…

On the final heavenly night in Jaipur after elephants, camels, fireworks and trumpets, not to mention a festive dinner with touching  toasts when I thought everyone was finally ready for bed, I spied a diehard group in the extraordinary Rambagh Palace Hotel Book Shop with the spirited Moss offering words of wisdom:

Never go anywhere without a credit card.

Below is most of our group plus our two fabulously knowledgeable, patient and well-dressed guides, Girish and Sanjeev.

While shopping was the backdrop, India was the star attraction. The country, of which I only got a tiny taste,  overwhelms, seduces, delights and shocks even the hardiest of travelers.

What will endure for me are the photos, said Moss, that will transport me back to the finely carved marble of the JianTemple at Ranakpur, the celebration of Diwali given by the Majarajah of Jodphur at the Umaid Bhawan Palace, the Taj Mahal at sundown and sunrise, the canopied boats gliding through early morning mist over Lake Pichola in Udaipur and the craftsmanship on display in every temple, palace, and fort. The deeply lined brown faces of the people, the sounds of market chatter, tuk-tuks beeping at no one in particular, animals foraging in the street, the smells of spices interwoven with smoke and the colors…..the colors…my photos will take me there.

Below are some photos to take you there.

Manhattan-based designer Katie Ridder taking in the stunning grandeur of Jodhpur ….

India by day…

by night…

the squalor…

the sacred

the colors…

the warmth

the surprises

the streetlife

the nightlife

Take me back to this magical place …

From the moment we arrived in polo-loving Jodhpur, the blue city, I was dazzled.

We stayed at the Umaid Bhawan Palace, the second largest inhabited palace after Buckingham Palace. We arrived the day of Diwali, India’s festival of lights ceremony …

Don’t miss the Mehrangarh Fort, which Rudyard Kipling called “the work of giants”.

We then drove several visually exhilarating hours to “the Venice of the East” Udaipur, which is surrounded by lakes and mountains. There we stayed at the Taj Lake Palace which is divine with pools so long that one lap is plenty.

Glass peacock wall art at the City Palace…

Our group went wild at Ganesh Handicraft Emporium, a three-story house packed with wares so intoxicating that I bought some white filmy patterned  curtains for windows I don’t own.

But where we really went to town was in Jaipur, Fine’s soul city. There we loved Anokhi for its hand-blocked fabrics and vast selection of goodies from sarongs to pajamas, plus lunch next door.

I never go to Jaipur without dinner at Peshawar and lunch at Anokhi where I have caramelized onion and Gorgonzola pizza, orange cake and fresh pomegranate juice, said Fine

Wolf’s favorite purchase was this onyx bowl from Jaipur’s unmissable Gem Palace…

The colors will remind me of the colors of India-even on the dullest winter day, writes Wolf. And I’ll forever have this as a reminder of those palaces and forts and ordinary buildings painted peaches to pinks. It’s hard to pick a highlight from the trip as we saw so many exceptional things…but the one I’ll never forget is the Hall of Mirrors at the Amer Fort.

If only I was Samantha Stephens in Bewitched, I would crinkle my nose and say,

Take me back to India now.

I am still reeling from the saffron, indigo, pale pinks, wandering elephants, swinging monkeys, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, stones I’d never heard of, scrambled eggs with tumeric, cumin and coriander, begging children, smiles, red dots, marigold flowers, trumpets, turbans, marble, and of course, the wonderful people I met on the trip.

As Boston architect Heather Wells emailed us in her group farewell,

Until we meet again ….. Namaste

November, 2017

Note: I want to thank the group for sharing their photographs with me. Several of the above are not my own. And I want to thank Lisa Fine, Indagare, Lucy at Banyan Tours, and of course, India, for giving me the trip of a lifetime.

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