What are your choices today if you want to own a bit of our rich Indian Textile History?
You can : Spend a lot of money and splurge on designer wear
Or
You can : Shop a duplicate from the thousands of brands around us
Did you know that India once boasted of a textile craft from almost every pin code, that makes it around 19,000 different types of textiles. We are talking about an industry that is more than 3000 years old. Indian fabric created across several taluks, made the country a formidable contender in international trade.
Then why are we forced to either splurge or wear a duplicate when we can proudly flaunt our heritage?
While on one hand, Markets of today are flush with cheap products made with environmentally harmful materials, on the other hand we are slowly and surely losing heritage weaves and fabric techniques and along with it, our rich textile history. The more we have, the less it seems to be.
Poor quality products, sold only as fast fashion items, and ending up as garbage in a landfill within a short time is a sad modern tale. There is an urgent need in the market to revive not just one or two but as many heritage clusters as possible, generating skilled employment for millions, which in turn will clothe the nation in high quality, beautiful products that last for generations.
The Honest weave:
We are committed to the concept of “ The Honest Weave”, whereby we aim to improve the conditions of weavers in 3 areas.
Steady income:
Approximately 67.1% of handloom worker households earn less than ₹5,000 per month, while 26.2% earn between ₹5,001 and ₹10,000. Only 1.2% of these households have a monthly income exceeding ₹20,000. Financial stability in this sector is rare and primarily limited to those with access to better markets or diversified income streams. We are committed to provide year-around steady income to the artisan clusters associated with us.
Removing middlemen:
Many weavers depend on intermediaries, to access raw materials and sell finished goods, who eat into their profits. These middlemen often exploit weavers by paying them low piece rates while earning significantly more from the final product. We are committed to remove middle men from the supply chain and provide fair wages directly to the weavers.
Capacity Building:
Many clusters make the same kind of product and the weavers are helpless when the same goes out of trend. We are committed to support weaves in this area by providing them with the best of technology-enabled research on trends, colors and help them adapt their legacy skills to fast moving consumer demand. There is a steady decline of about 30% year on year of the next generation joining the industry from the weaving families. 70-80% of them are struggling to find better paying jobs. We are committed to introduce young weavers to learn from our master weavers and rehabilitate them back to weaving and give them design, financial and technical support. This “ Cross generational learning” is one more step in keeping our legacy alive.