A Parsi house is a living museum. It is a space so well-preserved in time that every household object is an objet d'art. Ceramics, wall cabinets, diwans, curios, photo frames, barnis: each item has gathered dust and been feather-dusted for decades. We're in one such house in a baug in Tardeo, originally belonging to Minoo Lakdawala, a faded nameplate tells us. Today, his great-grandson, Auckland-based textile artist Areez Katki, is lodging here, while looking for inspiration. In a striped shirt with bell-bottom sleeves and high-waisted, tapered pants, similar to the kind his grandfather used to wear, and stitched by the same tailor, Katki, we can tell, was born in the right house and in the wrong decade.

Twenty-nine-year-old Katki, and his parents (both Parsis, both accountants) abandoned Mumbai when he was 10 months old. They moved to Muscat, and then to Auckland a decade later. Katki graduated from the University of Auckland in art history, English literature and philosophy in 2012, and began knitting cardigans and scarves, and hand-embroidering shirts and silk wraps, on the side. He made only 30 pieces a year, some of which for $600 each, because he ran a workshop of one.