A groom sat across from me a few weeks ago with a garment bag he had clearly been carrying carefully. Inside was his grandfather's achkan, a deep maroon brocade piece from the 1970s, slightly stiff with age, the gold thread gone soft and matte the way only real zari does after fifty years. He asked, almost apologetically, whether it was "too old" to wear to his own wedding. I told him the opposite is true. Nothing I could source new, however beautifully made, would carry what that piece already carried.
This is the conversation I am having more and more this wedding season, and it is one of my favourite parts of styling a groom. We talk a great deal about trend cycles in this line of work, about what colour is dominant this year or which silhouette is having a moment. But some of the most striking grooms I have styled recently were not wearing anything new at all. They were wearing family.
The Aesthetic: Heirloom as the Starting Point, Not the Compromise
There is a real renaissance happening around traditional Indian textiles right now, and I do not think it is a coincidence that it is arriving alongside a broader conversation about sustainability in bridalwear. Banarasi brocade, tussar silk, hand-loomed khadi: these are fabrics that were built to outlast a single wearing, and grooms are increasingly choosing to lean into that rather than around it. A father's or grandfather's sherwani, reworked rather than replaced, is becoming a genuine style statement, not a budget compromise or a sentimental afterthought tacked onto an otherwise all-new wardrobe.
What makes this work is that heirloom pieces almost always carry a kind of patina that new fabric cannot fake: zari that has softened, brocade that has developed a slight sheen from handling, colours that have mellowed into something richer than they started. Paired against 2026's love of ivory bases and tonal embroidery, an heirloom achkan or sherwani jacket often looks more current, not less, because it already has the understated, worked-in quality that new craftsmanship is trying to imitate.
The Stylist's Touch: What I Actually Do With a Heirloom Piece
The first thing I do is never touch the garment until I understand it. I look at the weave, the embroidery technique, whether the zari is real metal thread or a later synthetic replacement, and I have a trusted tailor assess the fabric's actual strength before we make any decisions, because a piece that has sat folded in a trunk for decades needs different handling than one worn regularly.
From there, my approach depends entirely on the piece. Sometimes the original achkan or sherwani is structurally sound and simply needs re-tailoring to the groom's own fit, since bodies and silhouettes have changed generation to generation and a boxy 1980s cut rarely flatters a modern groom as it sits. Other times I extract just the fabric, the border, or a panel of embroidery, and have it rebuilt into a new silhouette entirely: a heritage border reborn as the edge of a contemporary bandhgala, or a length of heirloom brocade remade into a modern jacket-style sherwani with today's cleaner lines. Customisation has become a real part of this conversation too. I am seeing grooms add personal touches into these reworked pieces: a wedding date embroidered discreetly into the lining, initials worked into a stole, a family crest reintroduced somewhere only the groom knows to look for it.
The one rule I never break: the heirloom fabric always leads the palette. I do not force a family piece into whatever colour is trending. I build the rest of the outfit, the safa, the stole, the footwear, around whatever that fabric is actually telling me.
The Vibe: Where Sustainability and Sentiment Meet
I think what I love most about this shift is that it solves two things at once. Grooms today are genuinely more conscious about where their wedding wardrobe comes from: eco-friendly dyes, upcycled vintage textiles, supporting artisans doing this work by hand rather than mass production. An heirloom piece answers all of that automatically, simply by already existing. And at the same time it gives a groom something that a brand-new sherwani, however exquisite, structurally cannot: a piece of his own family history standing next to him in every photograph from his wedding day.
I styled a groom for a Hyderabadi wedding earlier this year whose only request was that his late father's sherwani "be in the room," even reworked beyond recognition. We took the fabric, restructured it into a fitted bandhgala with a soft stand collar, and left one small original hand-embroidered motif untouched near the inner cuff, visible only to him. He did not need anyone else to know. That is, to me, what real personalisation in menswear actually looks like, far more than a trend colour ever could be.
A Few Practical Notes Before You Open the Trunk
Here is what I tell every family bringing me an heirloom piece to consider:
Have a tailor assess fabric strength before committing to any rework; not every vintage piece can safely be re-cut
Real zari and synthetic replacement thread behave very differently under restructuring, so identify which you have early
Decide whether you are re-tailoring the whole garment or extracting fabric and embroidery for a new silhouette; they are very different projects with different timelines
Start this process at least three to four months out; heirloom restoration and reconstruction takes longer than sourcing something new
Let the heirloom fabric set the palette for the rest of the outfit rather than forcing it to match a trend colour
Consider one quiet, personal detail, a date, initials, a hidden motif, rather than loud customisation
If the piece is too fragile to wear, it can still be present: reworked into a stole, a pocket square, or a lining rather than the primary garment
Why This Matters to Me
Styling a groom is never really about dressing one man for one day. It is about understanding what he wants to carry into that day, visible or not. An heirloom piece, reworked with real care, gives a groom something no showroom rack can: a wardrobe with a history already written into it, waiting only to be continued. That, to me, is what makes a look feel less like a costume and more like the truth of who he is.
If there is a piece sitting in your family's trunk that you have been wondering whether to wear, I would genuinely love to see it and talk through what it could become.
With love and style,
Shreya Gupta Kedia
Founder, SGK Styles
