With Yoshita 1967’s first formal collection, we are invited into the highlands of central Kenya to dance along ‘Temple Road’. Founder Anil Padia dedicates his brand to honouring his family, who migrated from Gujarat, India to Nyeri, Kenya over a century ago, and his own journey to the fashion world in Paris, where the yearning to tell the untold stories, rituals and tensions of his heritage have given birth to this most heartfelt and handcrafted of endeavours.

“My great-grandfather came to Kenya by boat with two brothers during a time when many Indians were seeking opportunities in East Africa,” Padia explains of Kenya’s complex colonial history. “There’s not a lot spoken about those times but there was little assimilation as the community held on tightly to their traditions.” Padia was born into a home filled with love from four generations of his family and surrounded by the tranquillity of nature. “I received a lot of different kinds of affection, which was very nourishing. We’d often go to the Mount Kenya River for picnics, which gave me a very dreamlike, mystical feeling and bred a big imagination.”

Heading to boarding school aged nine resulted in deep trauma. Its staunch Baptist teachings were at odds with his upbringing in the Sanatana Dharma faith and for the first time he felt his racial otherness. Equally Padia was struggling to navigate his difference as a queer person. “From a very young age I had this feeling inside of me that I could not express but I could not hide. So, I never found my place.” Thankfully, his close family accepted his sexuality, going on to encourage his equally irrepressible creativity. Growing up immersed in the sartorial and performative rituals of his culture – as well as his mother’s personal style – was like a moth to a flame. “There’s this dance scene in a Bollywood film called ‘Khal Nayk’ where Madhuri Dixit wears traditional attire covered in mirror work and shells, silver jewellery and white bangles and that changed my life. My love of fashion was sparked in that moment.”

Padia moved to London to study an art foundation at Central Saint Martins but suffered depression, rendering him unable to finish the course. Back in Nairobi, he interned with local brand Kooroo and readied himself to study fashion at La Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. In Paris, he learnt the technical arts of haute couture before going on to work at houses including Paco Rabanne, Y/Project, Jacquemus and Ellery. Then the pandemic hit, he returned to Kenya and finally felt ready to let go of accepted notions of ‘good taste’ and take a chance on the ideas that had always secretly fed his soul. “I walked into the fabric stores at [Nairobi mall] Diamond Plaza and just picked everything that caught my eye – lots of lace! – then went to a tailor. It was an exercise in, you know, fuck what anybody else thinks. And that was the beginning.”

Next, he started to connect with local crochet artisans and gradually, two experimental collections took shape as he developed the possibilities of local craftsmanship. It was a time of shaking loose those dichotomies that have influenced his hybrid identity. The interplay between Indian/Kenyan, Hindu/Christian, masculine/feminine, migration/belonging, couture/folkwear, nostalgia/now, fantasy/flesh, pain/beauty and so much more all fed into an odyssey-like aesthetic and eventually, Yoshita 1967 was born. “Yoshita was my aunt and the apple of my mother’s eye. She was very dear to me, and also my grandfather named his business Yoshita Industries, so I’m continuing that legacy in a different way,” he says. “The brand unifies the unheard voices of the women in my life and the censured stories in my lineage. It is a liberation of our collective karma. It is me coming home to myself.”

Four years in the making and a project of passion in every sense, Padia now presents ‘Temple Road’ during Paris Fashion Week SS25. Intricate crochet looks push the boundaries of the art form, with figure-loving silhouettes encrusted in mirror detailing and Yoshita 1967’s signature silver bells, their sound and spectacle an ode to the women who have held culture and community together throughout the generations. “My great-grandfather built the Temple in Nyeri and the themes of ritual that inform the brand come back to this one space through the Navarati festival, which is a nine-day celebration of the goddess Durga,” Padia explains. “This collection is an exploration of the colours, the classical dances and higher powers that signify the festival. And the bells are symbols of the sacred spaces reserved for women, creating a sensory experience that enriches the emotional resonance of my designs.”

‘Temple Road’ is also the culmination of his team’s commitment to homegrown creation, women empowerment and skills upliftment. Having fostered a studio with artisans Catherine, Lilian and Anastacia, who head up a production team of 15 women, his sustainable supply chain is innovating skills for future generations. As such, each look is limited edition, sitting Yoshita 1967 at the intersection of prêt-à-porter and couture. “One of the purposes of this brand is to go deeply into what making clothes by hand means. From thread to finished piece, so much energy goes into each garment. It is an intense process for the artisans, who all pour so much hope into their work. So, what we’ve done together has been pure alchemy.”

This same level of commitment and collaboration has gone into the brand’s wider visual storytelling through filmmaking. Working with multidisciplinary talents from Kenya’s creative scene, among them Michael Mwangi Maina and Fred Odede from the 199x collective, Iona McCreath, Luca Wakirindi and Mary Muko, Padia gathered family belongings from Nyeri, took them to an empty building in Nairobi and built a world within it where for two months, they brought his dreams of paradise to life. “There are so many creatives in the city who each have distinct styles and things to say, so making the ‘Temple Road’ film with them has been an amazing experience.”

After debuting the collection and film in Paris, Padia will bring them to Nairobi for viewings in November. Meantime he’s already working on a second film based on his great uncle’s life as a queer man in 1970s Kenya, and aims to grow the brand’s horizons further still. “I’m looking at different heritage embroidery, beading, dying and jewellery techniques and other categories including tailoring and leather goods. And I want to expand production into India, too,” Padia muses. “Between the triangle of Nairobi, Mumbai/Delhi and Paris, Yoshita 1967 will continue to celebrate the interconnectedness of these cultures. I’m open to the possibilities of the unknown and I’m excited for what the future holds.”