Thirty years.
One country.
A life’s work

Bernadette O’Farrell at Humayun’s Tomb Delhi - founder of India with Bernadette women’s textile journeys

Family ties first brought me to India in the late 1980s.

What began as a visit soon became something far more enduring, a fascination with a country’s extraordinary craft traditions.

Bernadette O’Farrell at Jagat Shiromani Temple Amer, Jaipur — India with Bernadette textile journeys

The
Formation

Before India became central to my life, I spent years at Channel 4 as a Deputy Commissioning Editor and later as a producer, working across hundreds of documentaries. That discipline of looking closely, question deeply, and finding the story beneath the surface, is inseparable from how I travel and how I work.

It shaped The Indian Garden Company, which I founded to develop handmade garden parasols, ceremonial tents and objects for the home with craftspeople in Kerala and Rajasthan. Those years of close collaboration brought me into the workshops of block printers, dyers, embroiderers and weavers whose knowledge had been passed quietly down through the generations.

“This kind of knowledge takes decades to build. It cannot be borrowed”

Bernadette O’Farrell with women artisans at a Ruma Devi craft workshop in Barmer, Rajasthan

The
collections grew

I worked with artisans across India, Nepal and Ecuador, developing pieces that were stocked by The White Company, Bergdorf Goodman and the Burford Garden Company. For a decade I exhibited at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Those relationships with makers, families and workshops are the foundation of everything I do now.

Bernadette O’Farrell holding a baby at a block print workshop in Bagru, Rajasthan

Today, those thirty years come together in the journeys I lead.

Small groups of women, never more than eight, travel through Rajasthan’s historic cities and villages, meeting master printers, dyers and weavers I have come to know through many years of working in India.

These are not tourist encounters. They are introductions to people and places that take a long time to earn.

I opened these journeys to small groups in 2024, following years of private and word-of-mouth travel with friends and colleagues. I also design bespoke travel experiences for individual clients: itineraries shaped entirely around their interests, pace and way of travelling.

Founder, The Indian Garden Company & Knüg · Exhibited: RHS Chelsea Flower Show (10 years) · Maison et Objet, Paris

Stocked by: The White Company · Bergdorf Goodman · Walt Disney · Graham & Green · Burford Garden Company

Begin the Conversation

If you would like to join one of the journeys, or to discuss bespoke itinerary, I would be glad to hear from you.