Mumbai’s Le Mill carves a niche

Four dynamic and fashion savvy women and a former rice mill that went on to be a warehouse

for storing toys manufactured in China, are together creating quite an impact in Mumbai for the city’s socialites. That’s Le Mill for you. A multifunctional, lifestyle concept store, Le Mill is housed in a former rice mill bang in the middle of the city’s gritty docks area. The four ladies behind Le Mill are Cecilia Morelli Parikh, Julie Leymarie, Aurelie de Limlette, and Le Mill’s fashion consultant Anaita Shroff Adajania. They are all passionate about creating an atmosphere where customers will want to linger. As Parikh says, people go to Merci in Paris and may not buy anything, but they go because they want to hang out there. They like the way it feels and she hopes people feel like that about Le Mill. They want people to come spend time in the store. By putting in an organic cafe, a flower shop and a book section, the quartet hopes to foster a laid-back social atmosphere.

The four women have stylishly curated and furnished the store. The founders share a European style sensibility rooted firmly in India and have worked at various jobs before joining forces for Le Mill. Leymarie was a marketing executive with L’Oréal India while De Limlette, was an artist who did window displays for Hermès, designs. Parikh worked at Vogue India and Adajania is still a fashion director at the same publication.

Much of the store focuses on home ware, with sofas and coffee tables displayed in the main section. All the furniture is manufactured in India, mixed in with Muuto lights from Scandinavia in eye-popping colors, and beautiful linens and cushions. Exclusive to Le Mill are fabrics and embroidery by Seema Krish, an Indian designer based in Boston and designs by Mumbai-based Maximiliano Modesti, who also supplies to Chanel, Stella McCartney and Givenchy.