Eve Blossom of Lulan Artisans

Here's a great article from Fast Company about Eve Blossom, the creator of Lulan Artisans, a company that, like mine, works directly with traditional handloom weavers to bring their beautiful wares to the international marketplace. While my focus is on Indian handloom, Eve works mostly with weavers in Southeast Asia.

Eve truly is one of the few people in our industry who understands that the purchases the consumer makes not only put money in the pockets of the weavers, their families, and their communities, but that their financial support prevents some of the saddest realities of astute poverty affecting both India and Southeast Asia. The atrocity of human trafficking, a rampant reality in both of these regions, is the primary reason Eve started her business, alerted to its chilling realities by an encounter with someone directly involved in this practice in Vietnam. After thorough research, Eve began to see the clear benefits of a for-profit company that encourages communities to support themselves through sustainable means. As Eve is quoted in the article, "When there's job creation and an economic choice in a community, there's less risk of them falling into human trafficking. When people can achieve a good quality of life, and find stable jobs, they don't tend to sell their children, for example, or to take jobs in the city or in another country with somebody that they don't know well." Eve has also just written a book: Material Change: Design Thinking and the Social Entrepreneurship Movement, to be published by Metropolis Books on October 31, 2011. It's definitely on my must-read list for this fall.

When I moved to San Francisco last year, I organized a dinner for those involved in the business of handloom to meet, eat, and discuss the issues facing our industry. Eve was at that very special dinner, and she impressed us all with the breadth and scope of her vision. I am so excited for her, her business, and her future projects, and I look forward to seeing what she creates next!