My first trip to Visakhapatnam was for a saree brand, which feels like a fairly good reason to make the journey. I was there to discover Kalaa by Kankatala, the new chapter in the Kankatala family’s long relationship with Indian textiles. The family has been rooted in Visakhapatnam since 1943, with three generations travelling across the country in search of handwoven textiles and weaving traditions. Kalaa brings that history into one 7,100-square-foot space across two floors, but what stayed with me was the family behind it and their passion for the textiles they have spent generations collecting and understanding.
The Kankatalas are clearly serious about sarees. You realise this quite quickly when a conversation that begins with a carefully arranged display of pieces turns into someone reaching back into the racks to pull out yet another saree they want you to see. Then another. And another. A particular border catches their attention, a weave needs explaining, a textile from another cluster suddenly becomes relevant. The conversation keeps moving because they have so much to show you.
That enthusiasm is what makes Kalaa interesting. The family has the knowledge that comes with decades of working with textiles, but they’re also curious about what happens when those traditions come together. Kalaa brings together handwoven textiles from across India, including Kanjivaram, Ikat, Gadwal, Ilkal, Kalamkari, Uppada, Mangalagiri, Venkatagiri, Paithani, Patan Patola, Benarasi weaves, Jamdani, Chanderi and Kota.
The experimentation becomes particularly interesting when these textile traditions start crossing geographical boundaries. At Kalaa, the Kankatalas have encouraged weavers to work across regions, resulting in Jamdani sarees with silk, Kanjivaram and Patola borders. One piece that caught attention was a Jamdani with a colourful border and a pallu depicting scenes from the Ramayana, while other combinations bring together techniques and visual languages that traditionally belong to very different parts of the country.
This approach gives the sarees a sense of movement. A Jamdani can suddenly have the structure of a Kanjivaram border, or the distinctive graphic quality of Patola can enter a textile rooted in another weaving tradition. Across the wider Kankatala collection, that curiosity extends to combinations such as Patan Patola with Kanchipuram silk, Patan Patola with Dhakai Kora Organza Jamdani and Paithani with Patan Patola. They also offer pieces that bring together Kota silk and Ikat with Patola-inspired elements.
For a family whose business has always involved travelling from one textile cluster to another, this cross-pollination makes sense. Their history is built around looking beyond one place for the next weave, the next technique and the next saree worth bringing home. Mallik Kankatala has spoken about the influence of his father and grandfather’s journeys across India’s craft clusters, while the third generation, led by Anirudh, Arvind and Bharat Kankatala, is now taking that legacy forward through Kalaa.
And there is a lovely simplicity to the way the family talks about all of this. They know what they are looking at. They can talk about a weave, a border or a particular saree with the kind of detail that comes from years of looking, travelling and sourcing. But there’s genuine excitement in showing it to someone else.
This enthusiasm makes the Kalaa experience different from simply walking into a store and browsing a selection of sarees. The family is deeply involved in the curation, and you can see that in the way they speak about the pieces. Their passion for textiles is central to the experience.
The space itself follows the same philosophy. Designed by experiential designer Devika Narain, Kalaa draws from the Kankatala family’s Andhra roots and their relationship with textiles. Brass lamps, carved wood, woven textures, and handcrafted details evoke the feel of a traditional home, while the blue running through the store takes its cue from the Narasimha Temple in Visakhapatnam.
There is a boat too, which seems particularly fitting for a family whose story is so tied to a coastal city and to travel. The store uses these details to create a sense of place while keeping the sarees as the main event.
My trip to Visakhapatnam ended with a much better understanding of the people behind the sarees I had spent the day looking at. The Kankatalas are a family that clearly loves what it does, and that passion comes through in the details, from the breadth of the collection to the excitement of pulling one more saree out of a rack. Kalaa may be a new chapter, but the curiosity behind it has been travelling with the family for generations.
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