The Gift

Diwali is five days. In 2026 they run from Dhanteras on Friday 6 November to Bhai Dooj on Wednesday 11 November, with the lamps lit on the Sunday between. At the 2021 census 1.0 million people in England and Wales, 1.7 per cent, gave their religion as Hindu. Leicester's council calls its Diwali Day the biggest in the UK, and Birmingham's mela on Soho Road, Handsworth, ran on 12 October last year, a month ahead of the festival. Guru Nanak's birthday follows on Tuesday 24 November, Hanukkah from sundown on Friday 4 December to Saturday the 12th, and then Christmas. The Bank of England puts December at about £713 more per household than an ordinary month, 29 per cent up.

Stock pieces leave within one to two working days and reach a UK address in three to five more; ten days ahead of any of these dates is comfortable, and the last order dates for Christmas are in part five.

At the Mughal court a gift was a garment. The khil'at, a robe of honour from the ruler's own wardrobe, bound the man who received it to the man who gave it, and shawls from Kashmir travelled in those bundles; Stewart Gordon's volume of essays follows the practice from the Delhi sultans to the East India Company. By the nineteenth century the shawl was the valley's export. Walter Lawrence put the trade at its height at 25,000 to 28,000 people weaving, prices from 150 to 5,000 rupees a piece, and exports averaging 35 to 38 lakhs of rupees a year between 1862 and 1870. Then the Paris market shut, and by 1893 to 1894 the export of shawls came to 22,850 rupees.

What outlived the loom was the needle. Lawrence rated the embroidered felts of Srinagar 'perhaps the most artistic of the Kashmiri textiles', and needlework carries most of this list: aari chain stitch on the kurtis, kaftans and cushion covers, sozni on the Fincrest scarf, the jacket and the heirloom shawls. Each listing says hand or machine where we know; where it says neither, ask us.

Twenty gifts, four at every price, from £15 to about £200.

The cotton kurtis are £15 to £20, one size, 160 grams, with aari embroidery around the neckline; our kurti guide explains the cut. The wool and silk scarves at £20 are 200 by 70 centimetres: the Mystique Aura is 85 per cent wool and 15 silk, the Harud Chandni 80 and 20 at 65 grams, machine woven.

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Merino and silk from the summer collection: jacquard paisleys at £25 and stripes at £30, handwoven from hand-spun two-ply yarn at a 120/2 count, hand-fringed, 97 to 106 grams. A scarf that weighs less than a letter and sits under a coat all winter; the VibrantFrame at £26 is wool and silk with a woven palla border.

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Fine wool with needlework. The Fincrest at £49 carries sozni embroidery and is hand-finished; the Florantique at £55 is handwoven with a vine border. The cushion covers, £30 to £60, are aari worked by hand on pure wool, the present for the house you are invited to. The reversible striped shawl at £49 is 70 per cent super wool and 30 Tencel.

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Here cashmere begins. The Jacquard at £74 and the Sandskein at £70 are certified cashmere; the plain Reg-e-Zar and Shahd at £90 are handwoven in Kashmir from hand-spun two-ply yarn at an 80/2 count, 103 grams. The Desert Haze shawl at £100 is a handwoven plain weave in cream and mocha, and the Heritage Pashmina Shabnam Ember at £120 is handwoven, 140 grams, five in stock. Cashmere is the fibre name in law and pashmina the finest grade of it; our pashmina and cashmere guide draws the line, and the cashmere collection holds 72 pieces.

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Pattern, tailoring and needlework. The Ruby Caravan kani shawl at £125 is pure pashmina in a machine-woven 75 count, ruby, saffron and turquoise. For him, the Crimson Houndstooth muffler at £130 is handwoven, 180 by 30 centimetres, 160 grams, six in stock; the men's range runs to 24 pieces. The Wular Azure jacket at £135 is pure wool with aari hand embroidery in ice blue and silver on navy, and the Meadow Mist shawl at £160 is wool with sozni-style florals on mauve.

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Four heirloom shawls are in stock, £1,050 to £2,100. Each is certified pashmina handwoven on a traditional loom and then embroidered in sozni single-needle work over 200 to 400 hours, and each exists once; the two largest are 225 by 115 centimetres. Between them and the £160 row sit the embroidered pashmina scarves at £420 to £480, handwoven, 200 by 70. For the house there are the throws: three handwoven in pure Kashmiri cashmere at £750, the rest from £60, and our note on the difference between a throw and a blanket says which to give. The heirloom collection can be seen in the shop first.

Stock pieces are dispatched in one to two working days, tracked. UK delivery is three to five working days, £4.95 under £60 and free above it. Worldwide delivery is seven to 21 working days, £25 under £200 and free above; customs duties and local taxes are the recipient's, and we declare every parcel honestly, so we cannot mark one as a gift. Christmas last-order dates are posted here in November; until then, count back from the delivery times above, or call the shop.

Returns run fourteen days from delivery for pieces unworn, with their tags; refunds reach the card in five to ten working days, and an exchange is held until the original comes back. The shop at 1532 Pershore Road, Stirchley, is open Monday to Saturday from 10.30 to 6.30 and Sunday from 12 to 6, on 0121 798 0032; our note on the shop says what is on the shelves.

• £15 to £20Cotton kurtis with aari at the neckline; wool and silk scarves, 200 by 70.
• £25 to £30Merino and silk jacquards and stripes, handwoven from hand-spun yarn, under 110 grams.
• £40 to £60Fine wool scarves with sozni needlework; cushion covers embroidered by hand; reversible shawls.
• £70 to £120Cashmere, certified and handwoven; the Desert Haze shawl; Heritage Pashmina scarves.
• £125 to £160Kani weaves, the wool jacket, sozni shawls, and the men's handwoven mufflers.
• £420 to £2,100Embroidered pashmina scarves, cashmere throws, and the four heirloom shawls.