Myrah PenalozaThe Brand & Product Guide

Myrah Penaloza at a Glance

Who Is Myrah Penaloza?

The label carries the founder's maiden name. Mayra Penaloza, who signs her work as Myrah, is a Mexican-American designer who grew up in East Los Angeles. Before there was a collection there was a life that kept circling the same things: the body, how it moves, and what a woman puts on it. She studied kinesiology. She worked in A&R at Interscope Records. She bought for fashion brands and boutiques. She trained in Kundalini yoga with Gurmukh at Golden Bridge in Los Angeles, showing up as a volunteer for more than six months before she had a place in the room, and she still teaches.

For seven years she and Robindra built and ran Bloom, a yoga and music festival in Canada. An invitation to India followed a chance meeting with a manufacturer, four designs sketched on a napkin before the flight home, and a first garment, the Kundalini Gown, worn on stage at the next Bloom by Marianne Williamson. Then the family moved to Bali, shortly before the world closed in 2020, with two children, two cats and a dog. The brand as it exists now was built there.

Robindra is the co-founder. He does not design the clothing. He builds everything that lets the clothing exist: the operations, the relationships with the artisan families, the written voice of the brand. Inside the company the two of them are called the Artisan and the Architect, and it is an accurate description of who does what.

What holds it together is a single idea, which is that getting dressed is not consumption. It is ceremony. A woman choosing what to wear is making a small decision about who she is going to be that day, and clothing made with attention can meet her there. The brand calls this clothing made in ceremony, and everything below is the practical shape of that belief.

Fashion, at its best, is not consumption. It is ceremony.

What We Make

Myrah Penaloza makes women's clothing in natural fabric, built around a small number of silhouettes that get revisited in new fabrics, new colourways and new weights rather than being replaced each season. The collection returns to itself instead of constantly reinventing itself.

• Playsuits and rompers. The signature category. One piece, easy to wear, easy to travel with. The Kundalini Playsuit, the Sat Torri, the Kuan Yin and the Yin Yang River all live here. See the full playsuits collection.
• Linen sets. A button-down top with a matching short or trouser, worn together or split across a wardrobe. The Suka Set and the Nidra Set are the anchors. See the set collection.
• Kaftans. Loose, long, forgiving. The Virgo Moon Kaftan and La Majia Kaftan are the ones that keep returning. See kaftans.
• Gowns and occasion pieces. Silk and ramie, often botanically dyed, made in very small numbers. See dresses and gowns and bridal and special occasion.
• Skirts, tops and trousers. The Shanti Wrap Skirt, the Spirit Top, the Mona Pant. See tops and bottoms.
• Silk. A small ceremonial edit. See the silk collection.
• Home and adornment. Linen pillowcases, shell and stone jewellery, and a small tea collection connected to Myrah's Cha Dao practice. See sacred adornments and the Cha Dao tea collection.

Two things run across all of it. Almost everything is designed to fit a wide range of bodies without a size label doing the work, and a large part of the collection is wearable through pregnancy and nursing without being designed as maternity wear.

Who We Design For

The woman this clothing is made for is described by her decisions rather than her age. In practice many of our customers are somewhere between their mid-thirties and mid-fifties, but that is an observation about who has found us, not a requirement, and it has never been the thing that decides whether a piece is right for someone.

What actually describes her: she is conscious about what she buys and where it comes from. She is quality-oriented and has learned what natural fabric does against her skin. She is independent-minded and dresses to please herself. She values craftsmanship and wants to know whose hands made a thing. She travels, and she has learned to pack light because she has done it badly before. She is often near yoga, tea, ceremony or a practice of her own, and she does not need her clothing to announce that. She appreciates individuality, so a colourway that arrives slightly different from the photograph reads to her as a feature. And she wants clothing that lasts rather than clothing that gets replaced.

She is frequently in a season of return rather than reinvention. Not becoming someone new, remembering who she already is. That is who the collection is cut for, and it is why the fit is generous, the fabric is honest, and nothing here is trying to make her look like a different person.

Why Bali Matters

Made in Bali, not just inspired by Bali.

Bali is not a mood board for this brand. It is where the founders live, where their children go to school, and where every garment is physically made. The relationships with the artisan families are relationships with neighbours, which is a different thing from sourcing from a country you visit twice a year.

That proximity is the production argument. Fabric can be looked at before it is cut. A fit can be corrected in an afternoon. A family can say the work is too much this month and be believed, because the conversation happens in person rather than by email across eleven time zones.

Bali also shapes the design in ways that are practical rather than decorative. The climate is hot and humid most of the year, which is why the fabrics are breathable and the cuts are loose. The island has a genuine ceremonial calendar, which is why clothing that can move from a morning practice to a temple to dinner is a normal requirement here rather than a styling idea.

What Bali is not, for this brand, is a costume. The collection does not borrow Balinese sacred dress, and it does not use the island as shorthand for spirituality. It is simply where the work is done, at close range.

Made in Bali: The Production Ecosystem

Everything Myrah Penaloza sells is cut and sewn in Bali. Around thirty artisan families do the work. About half sew from their own homes. About half work in small boutique production houses that the artisan tailors own and run themselves. Neither is a factory, and the brand owns neither.

The reason is influence rather than sentiment. Inside a factory a brand is one buyer among many and has very little say over conditions on the floor. With a family, and with a small workshop the tailor owns, you are in the room. You know what the space is like, what the hours are, what is missing, and when something needs to change you can have that conversation directly with the person who can change it. Scale would buy efficiency and cost the only leverage that actually protects the makers.

Every artisan is paid a living wage, directly. Not the Indonesian legal minimum, and not routed through an intermediary taking a margin. Makers set their own hours and work in their own space. Through 2020 the network was paid full wages for the whole of the period.

Meet the Makers holds more of this, including the reason there are not yet names and portraits on the page. The makers are individual families and small businesses rather than corporate suppliers, and the brand has not asked their permission to publish their names and locations. That page will hold their faces when they are ready to share them, and not before.

Our Artisan Community

Several of the makers have worked with the brand since before it had a name anyone recognised. The network was built deliberately, and it was already operating when the fashion industry contracted in 2020, which is the reason it came through that year intact.

A living wage here means something specific. It means enough for a home, for children's schooling, for ceremonies, for days off. It means no one is racing a quota. Many pieces are made from start to finish by a single artisan family rather than passed down a line, which is why quality holds and why the person who made your garment could tell you about it.

The brand does not publish a supplier list, and says so plainly rather than implying transparency it has not earned. It also does not publish a carbon footprint or a science-based emissions target, because it has not measured those properly yet. The Slow Fashion page carries the full honest column of what the brand does not have.

Natural Fabrics

Around 95% of what Myrah Penaloza makes is certified sustainably sourced linen and organic cotton. The brand is moving toward 100% natural and is not there yet, so it publishes the exceptions rather than rounding the figure up.

Across a range of roughly two hundred styles, two to three products use bamboo rayon or viscose silk, and those styles are being discontinued rather than replaced. Two styles of jeans are 95% organic cotton with 5% elastane, which is there so the waist holds its shape. Myrah Penaloza does not use polyester. There is no fur, no angora, no down, no exotic animal skin, no leather and no wool anywhere in the collection.

The remainder is deliberate. When seasonal deadstock is found, fabric already woven and sitting in a warehouse waiting to be thrown away, it gets bought and given a life. And a small percentage of production is held back for colour trials and one-off pieces, because that is what a designer needs in order to keep making well. Nothing here is mass produced, so a single bolt can become eight pieces and then never exist again.

Linen, and why it carries the collection

Linen is the fabric this brand is built on. Flax is among the strongest natural plant fibres, commonly cited as two to three times stronger than cotton, and it softens rather than degrades with washing. It is breathable, which matters when the clothing is designed in a climate that is hot and humid most of the year. It is biodegradable at the end of its life. And it ages into something better looking than it started, which is the argument for buying fewer, better things.

The flax is European long-line fibre, harvested by pulling the plant from the ground rather than cutting it. The lighter colourways carry European Flax certification, which traces the fibre to fields in France, Belgium or the Netherlands and covers growing without irrigation or GMOs. The linen is stonewashed before it is cut, so the fabric has already relaxed out of its loom tension before a single seam is sewn. That is why a Myrah linen piece feels lived-in on the first wear rather than the fiftieth.

Linen also wrinkles, and that is not a defect. It is what untreated natural fibre does, and it is the reason the fabric softens over years instead of pilling and dying in one season. More in How to Wear Linen and Why Is Linen So Expensive.

Certifications, and the one we do not hold

The linen carries OEKO-TEX Standard 100, which tests the finished fabric for harmful substances. The lighter linen colourways carry European Flax and Masters of Linen, which trace the flax back to the European fields it was grown in. The mills hold GOTS at fabric level.

What the brand does not hold is a full chain-of-custody mark, and that is a decision rather than an oversight. That standard requires every sewing site in the chain to be certified individually as a facility, at a per-site annual cost that is workable for one factory and not for thirty homes and small workshops. The standard was never built to describe a network shaped like this one. Consolidating all of the sewing into a single certified facility would earn the mark and would end the exact arrangement the certification exists to protect. The full arithmetic is in Why Ethical Certification Prices Out the Most Ethical Brands.

Made to Order

Not everything here is made to order, and we would rather be precise about it. New collections and the pieces stocked in the Bali boutique are made ahead in small batches, in runs of tens rather than thousands, and they are in stock when you buy them.

The Made to Order collection and the older styles work the other way. Those pieces do not exist when you buy them. When the order comes through, one of the artisan families in Bali begins work: the fabric is cut, the seams sewn, the tie finished, by hand, for that order specifically.

Nothing anywhere is mass produced, and when a batch sells out it may not return.

The wait is the same either way, weeks rather than days, because every garment is finished, checked and packed by hand in Bali whether it was waiting on the shelf or cut for you. Production takes 14 to 28 days, with an additional 10 to 14 days for anything botanically dyed, because plant dye needs several days in the bath before a seam can be sewn. Transit follows, 5 to 15 business days from Bali. Custom sizing and busy periods can add time, and we will tell you.

That is not a delay. That is devotion.

If you are ordering for a date, the Made to Order collection is the one to plan furthest ahead for, and What Made-to-Order Actually Means explains how to work backwards from the day you need it.

Why We Do Not Overproduce

Garments are made in small runs. When something sells out it may not come back, and that is not a scarcity tactic. It is what happens when a brand refuses to make more than it can sell and more than the people making it can comfortably produce.

Making after the order is placed is the purest version of the argument, and it is why part of the collection works that way. A garment that is only made once someone has asked for it cannot become unsold inventory, cannot be marked down to nothing, and cannot end up in a landfill having never been worn. Small batches do most of the same work: a run of tens sells through, and a single bolt of rescued deadstock is workable for a brand producing eight pieces from it.

Myrah Penaloza does not claim an environmental saving it has not measured. There is no published carbon footprint, and we say so. What can be said honestly is that nothing is made speculatively, nothing is destroyed to protect price, and prices are not cut deeply to clear stock that should not have been made.

The 108 Wear Test

Every garment has to clear a floor before it is made. It gets worn, washed and worn again, and the question asked of it is whether it can hold at least thirty wears without losing its shape or its colour. If it cannot, it is not made.

The heirloom pieces, the linen ones built to be kept and handed on, are held to a higher number. One hundred and eight.

One hundred and eight is a number that carries weight in yoga, where it is the count of one full mala, a complete cycle of devotion. Used as a threshold for clothing it does something simple. It rules out anything that would look tired after a season: fabric that pills, seams that give, construction that only photographs well.

Our Approach to Colour and Dyeing

Many of the signature colourways are created through plant-based botanical dyeing, using turmeric, indigo and native Balinese botanicals. The cloth sits in the dye for several days before a seam is sewn. Dye waste is not discharged into waterways.

Botanical colour behaves differently from synthetic colour. It shifts gently over years rather than fading flatly, so an older piece reads as aged rather than worn out. It also refuses to be identical twice. Water temperature moves through the day, and the minute a piece enters the bath changes what the fibre takes up.

Rainbeau

Rainbeau is the signature colourway and the clearest expression of the process. Sunset purples, blues, pinks and golds, laid into linen by hand. No two batches are identical, and no two pieces within a batch are identical either. If you order Rainbeau, yours will not be an exact match to the photograph. That variation is the point.

Read The Story Behind Rainbeau, Natural Indigo, the Oldest Blue in the World, or see the Rainbeau collection.

Signature Myrah Pieces

A small number of silhouettes carry the collection. These are the pieces that return in new fabrics and colourways year after year. Prices are in USD and were correct at the last review of this page. Product pages are always the current source.

Myrah by Use Case

The most useful thing to know about this collection is when it belongs in your life. Here is the honest version, including where it does not.

Explore Myrah by What You're Looking For

If you arrived with something specific in mind, start here.

How Myrah Is Different

Rather than characterise anyone else's business, here is what Myrah Penaloza does, stated as its own choices.

• Myrah chooses to produce outside the factory system. Around thirty artisan families, about half in their own homes and about half in workshops the tailors own, with no facility owned by the brand.
• Myrah chooses to make after the order, in small runs. Unlike mass-produced clothing, most pieces are cut only once someone has asked for one.
• Myrah chooses certified natural fibre. European flax carrying OEKO-TEX Standard 100, with European Flax and Masters of Linen traceability on lighter colourways, and no polyester.
• Myrah chooses botanical dye for its signature colourways, accepting that no two pieces will match, rather than the consistency a synthetic dye would give.
• Myrah chooses to publish its exceptions. The 5% that is not certified linen or organic cotton is named and counted rather than rounded away, and the certifications the brand does not hold are stated on the Slow Fashion page.
• Myrah chooses one-size-fits-most construction, so a piece can move with a body that changes rather than being replaced when it does.
• Myrah chooses to hold pricing rather than discount deeply, because the price reflects a wage and a fibre.
• The founders are named, present, and write the brand's voice themselves, weekly, in the Muse-Letter.

Sizing & Customization

Myrah Penaloza is a one-size-fits-most brand rather than a one-size-fits-all brand, and the difference matters. Instead of XS to XL labels, the collection uses generous silhouettes, wrap ties, elasticated waists and draping designed to move with a range of real bodies. Some styles are offered in S/M, M/L and XL.

As a guide, the standard range fits a bust of roughly 32 to 44 inches, a waist of 24 to 38 inches, hips of 34 to 46 inches and a height of 5'2" to 5'11", which is around US 2 to 16. Linen sets extend to about US 18, and kaftans and gowns to US 22 and beyond. These are guidelines rather than limits, and curvy and plus-size women are among the brand's most loyal customers.

Custom sizing is offered on the styles in the Made to Order collection, or by special request on other pieces, and it is not an upcharge. Email support@myrahpenaloza.com with your bust, waist, hip and height measurements and the name of the piece, before you order, and we will tell you honestly what can be accommodated. One thing to know before you choose it: custom pieces and made-to-order pieces are final sale and cannot be exchanged.

Full measurements, how to take them, and per-category ranges are in the Sizing Guide. Also useful: Does One Size Fit Me?

Production, Shipping & Exchanges

Everything is made and shipped from Bali, tracked, in plastic-free packaging.

Timing. Production takes 14 to 28 days. Botanically dyed pieces need an additional 10 to 14 days in the dye. Transit is 5 to 15 business days once your piece is dispatched. Custom sizing and busy periods can add time.

Cost and duties. Shipping is free worldwide on orders over $350 USD. Below that a single flat rate applies per zone, with no weight tiers: free within Indonesia, $9.99 to the United States, $15 to Canada, Mexico and Asia, $18 to Australia and New Zealand, $25 to the United Kingdom and Europe, and $32 to the rest of the world. Duties and import taxes are set by your local customs authority and paid to the carrier on delivery. Those rules have changed more than once recently, so rather than print a figure here that goes stale, the current position is kept dated on the Shipping page.

Exchanges. Because pieces are made by hand to order, there are no cash refunds. Exchanges are welcome within 10 days of delivery, for a sizing issue or for anything that arrives damaged, as long as the piece is unworn, unwashed, unaltered and still has its tags. All exchanges and returns are issued as store credit. Custom and made-to-order pieces, sale items, items bought with store credit and previously exchanged items are final sale. Full terms are on the Exchanges page.

Further reading: How Long Does Shipping Take From Bali and Returns and Exchanges Explained.

Caring for Your Myrah Pieces

The short version, which covers most of the collection: cold water, hand wash or gentle cycle, hang or lay flat to dry, never tumble dry. Iron on medium while slightly damp, or use a steamer. Store linen folded rather than hung. Silk is hand wash only, dried flat away from direct sun, and stored in breathable fabric rather than plastic. Botanically dyed pieces should be washed separately for the first two washes so the dye can set, in cold water only.

Following that is most of the difference between a garment that lasts a season and one that lasts a decade. Fabric-by-fabric instructions, including silk, Tumanggal hand-woven cotton and travel storage, are in the Care & Ritual Guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

More From Myrah

Last reviewed September 2026. Prices and availability change, and product pages are always the current source. For press, wholesale, stockist or editorial enquiries, write to support@myrahpenaloza.com.