Our Story

My name is Eshaa, and I founded Rivayraa out of a lifelong love for design & craft, and a deep need for honesty in the things we bring into our homes.

I grew up in Banaras, a city where fabric was not just material — it was life. I remember walking past street looms, watching shimmering Banarasi sarees being woven in the open air because they were too grand to fit inside a studio. That was my first brush with textile, with a craft so intricate and alive, it demanded space in the world.

Two decades as an Industrial Designer took me across continents, from studying at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India, to a scholarship semester at RMIT in Melbourne, and then a double master’s from Domus Academy in Milan, the epicenter of design. I worked with some of the biggest companies in the world along the way, from India to China and on to the USA, turning ideas into real products. But somewhere in the midst of it, I also saw the darker side of production: workers underpaid, processes that stripped away authenticity, and a relentless pace that left no room for soul. I promised myself that if I ever created something of my own, I would do it differently.

That promise became Rivayraa in the summer of 2023, during what felt like the most soulless stretch of my career. I was building other people’s visions, but not my own. At home in California by then, I struggled to find 'pure' cotton linens for my home, everything was blended, shiny, “perfect” in ways real fabric never is. And I kept thinking, home should feel like home. Natural. Honest. Lived in and imperfect in all the right ways.

So I started Rivayraa with a simple intention: to create products I could trust in my own space. 100% cotton, azo-free dyes, OEKO-TEX® certified fabrics, crafted with artisans whose names and families I know and who are fairly paid for their skill. I don’t negotiate them down, I listen to their stories and let their craft guide my designs, because I want every piece to carry both my detail-oriented eye and their lived knowledge.

Rivayraa is for people who see the world with open eyes. It isn’t for the grey-beige aesthetic, or the showroom house made for social media. It’s for lived-in homes filled with color, memory, and soul. It’s for people who know that real cotton creases, handmade prints vary, that beauty lies in touch as much as in sight.