Thursday, October 27, 2011

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!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Get Your Handloom Jeans Here!

Some good news among the not-so-good news in the handloom industry... Saurashtra Rachnatmak Samiti, an organization in Gujarat, has found a way to make handloom denim! Now the world’s most popular fabric is being made on a large scale. Let’s hope that the denim designers of the world take note.

Indigo Handloom will soon have our own version of denim, a cotton twill made with hand-twisted cotton called khadi. Look for it in our spring 2012 collection.

Finally, a reason to justify a pair of $400 jeans!

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Art for Artists’ Sake: The State of Handloom

People sometimes ask me why I would promote other handloom organizations, when conventional wisdom suggests that a business owner should always be wary of the competition.

Here’s the simple reason: the handloom industry and those who produce handloom have too much at stake for me not to support my colleagues. Almost every week, I read news articles detailing the demise of the traditional handloom industry. Incredibly, this amazing art form that has been practiced for hundreds of years is in danger of being wiped out within a decade!

It’s one to thing to mourn the loss of an art form, but I’m concerned primarily with the artists themselves. Most handloom weavers have little or no education and few resources to support themselves or their families. Without the ability to earn money from their weaving, they will either starve or flee to the cities in search of work—adding even more to the growing number of the world’s desperately poor. Here they have this amazing talent with incredible value, and yet, in a matter of years, it will be gone forever—so heartbreaking.

So here’s why I support and promote other handloom organizations: I know that my contribution to this industry and its producers are just a drop in the bucket—there’s just no way I (or any of my colleagues) can do it alone. If someone buys handloom products from another company, it indirectly supports all of us who produce and sell handloom. Indeed, even if a company spends time with me learning about how to use handloom, but then ends up with another supplier, at least handloom as a whole is still being supported. While I’d love to have their business (of course!), I know at the bottom of my heart that they’re still helping me to fulfill my mission.

Interested in learning more? Check out this article about a region in which more than six generations of families have sustained themselves by weaving—until now. While there were once nearly 3,000 weavers in this area, there are now only 142 looms left.

This article details yet another region facing similar circumstances: in the Rangpur district, only 150 weavers now remain in an area that used to support 6,000.


There are many reasons why handloom is declining: changing tastes in the domestic market, the WTO rules governing textiles, and the surging Indian economy. While it’s great to understand the issues facing these artists, I’m concerned more with finding a way to make a difference. Again, not just for the art form that I love, but for the people who produce it.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Wink

A quick, amazing story from this past summer: I was in Manhattan visiting one of Indigo Handloom's private label scarves customers, and it was a crazy hot day...a record high 107 degrees! After the meeting, I stood on the corner of 17th Street and 5th Avenue—talking on the phone and sweating like crazy—until I got completely distracted by a woman walking by in a blue dress.

This wasn't any blue dress—it was actually a sample from the Indigo Handloom clothing line, circa spring 2008! We only made two of these blue and white handloom ikat cotton "prayer" dresses and sold both of them at a sample sale. The fabric of these dresses is truly striking: the weavers wove the prayer "Om Namah Shivaya," which loosely means "I honor the goddess within me," into the cloth using the ancient dyeing technique of ikat.

Of course, I got off the phone and stopped the woman. The proud owner of the dress, Melissa Milgrom, recognized me almost immediately and said, "Aren't you that designer from Dumbo?" The "prayer" dress, she said, was her absolute favorite summer dress, and that she "gets compliments every time I wear it." She had paired it that day with some adorable blue and white wedges, big sunglasses, and a sun hat. Perfect styling!

She also said that she and her friend, another customer, "mourned the end" of the Indigo Handloom store in Dumbo. I was so happy to tell her that I would be up and running under my new label, Smita Paul Design, very soon.

Launching a new project, while exciting, is always a bit scary—this little "wink" from the universe came exactly when I needed it the most.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

The Fair Trade Certification Process


For years, I’ve been trying to find a fair trade certifying agency that knows how to handle a company partly based in the U.S., partly based in India, and without a central manufacturing center. As a true “cottage” industry, all of the work of Indigo Handloom is done in the homes of weavers—this, understandably, makes it harder for certification agencies to evaluate whether or not our manufacturing processes align with their regulations. Thus, although there are a large amount of agencies out there from which to receive certification, none have been a good fit for my company.

It’s not just the idiosyncrasies of Indigo Handloom that have slowed down this process: while there has been incredible movement towards fair trade certification in everything from food, to cotton, to wine, and even to gold, my industry has mostly relied on standards proscribed by what I’ll loosely call “the ethical clothing movement,” which considers the social and environmental factors involved with creating clothing (the treatment of workers, disposal of waste water, chemical residue from dyes and washes, etc.). A great place to start, yes, but nothing as all-encompassing and regulated as fair trade.


Just when I was about to embark on this quest yet again, I got a call from Heather Franzese, Senior Category Manager for Apparel and Linens at Fair Trade USA, an organization based in Oakland, California. At the request of one of our private label clients, she was headed to my village in India to look at the way our production was managed. Heather’s not only working on a pilot program for Fair Trade Certification for apparel—check it out at http://www.fairtradecertified.org/certification/producers/apparel-linens—she’s also focusing on another project that uses mobile phones to promote more stringent social standards and community development. This new program has already been implemented in Peru with the help of an organization called World Of Good. You can read the case study here: http://www.worldofgood.org/our-work/laborlink/.


Fast-forward to last week: Heather just came back from visiting my village, and we are going to meet in October to discuss what’s next in the process of getting Indigo Handloom fair trade certified! While I wasn’t able to be there during her visit, I heard from Heather that our managers did a great job showing her around. When we spoke recently, she said she was “ecstatic” about what she saw there. One thing I’ve always told people—after spending a day in the villages seeing how weavers work, you can understand why they would rather continue receiving a fair wage as a weaver, as opposed to moving to the city to look for a manual labor job. Most weavers have little or no education, but they do have an amazing skill that keeps them out of poverty—provided they are given enough work.

I’m so looking forward to working with Heather and Fair Trade USA, and I’ll definitely let everyone know when we’re certified! Stay tuned.

Look for me on Facebook at Indigo Handloom/Smita Paul Design and on Twitter @smitapaul.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Handloom in the 'Hood


Handloom is coming to my old ‘hood, Fort Greene, Brooklyn! I'm so pleased to see that the handloom organization Tilonia, run by my friend Ellen Fish, will be displaying their wares in lovely Fort Greene through the Pratt Pop-Up! store at Dekalb Market until October 16. I lived in Fort Greene for eight joyful years and started my business in my apartment there, so that area definitely holds a special place in my heart.

Tilonia is a non-profit organization that employs a variety of artisans through the Barefoot College, an NGO that works to improve the lives of the rural poor by addressing basic needs for water, electricity, housing, health, education, and income. Through its production of home goods and accessories, Tilonia creates an income stream for artisans in the Indian state of Rajasthan.

Here’s what I love about the Barefoot College: its work is based upon the belief that though the poor may be uneducated, they still have the fierce desire to provide for themselves and their families. This organization, at work for over thirty-five years, is known especially for their solar energy program, which trains rural women to install solar electricity in their rural, remote, and often non-electrified villages.

The Barefoot College also does important work in many other areas, including health care, environmental causes, and women’s entrepreneurship and empowerment. Because of their inspirational work to support and sustain village life, I’m proud to say that the Barefoot College will be one of the organizations supported by our commitment at smitapauldesign.com to donate 10% of sales to charitable organizations. My hope is to support women from the villages where I work to go through the solar energy program. Until our site launches (stay tuned!), please go out and support Tilonia at Dekalb Market! For pictures of the shop in action (such as the one above), see www.designhope.wordpress.com .

Hello again!

Hello again! I know…it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on this site.

You will just have to forgive me. The truth is, I’ve been busy.

My mission has always been to employ as many handloom weavers as possible and to raise awareness about the social and ecological benefits of handloom. Slowly but surely, it seems to be working.

In 2008, one the most respected clothing companies in the United States approached me to create a line of private label scarves for their label. This company is committed to human rights, supporting women’s empowerment, and clean, sustainable social practices, and handloom scarves seemed like the perfect fit for their label.

Thus, I had a decision to make: working for this label would mean the production of thousands of scarves, and therefore the employment of hundreds of workers…but it would also mean closing my shop in Brooklyn and taking a break from my clothing line. Thousands of units versus several dozen scarves a season? I couldn’t resist the opportunity to make a difference in so many people’s lives, and I closed up my shop.

What a wild ride it’s turned out to be! Since I last posted, I’ve been to India at least a twenty times, with the occasional stop in Hong Kong and Thailand. I’ve weathered typhoons, transit strikes, red tape spaghetti, and maneuvered my way past a few unscrupulous individuals…believe me, I’ve got enough stories for an entire book—and then some.

I’ve also learned many lessons (some of them tougher than others) about how business gets done in India—all these many months later, I now feel like a seasoned pro. I’m proud to say that I’ve overseen the production and shipment of more than 50,000 scarves in the past three years. Whew!

There have been a lot of personal changes during this time as well. In the summer of 2009, I fell in love…with a bright orange Vespa... In a weird way, the joy of riding my scooter helped me to fulfill a long-standing desire to move to California. Why? Well, in California, I can ride my fabulous scooter year ‘round! Now, I ride my Vespa to my office in a fun neighborhood called “Dogwatch,” and I’m slowly building a community here. I still travel to New York and India on a regular basis, so now it feels like I have three hometowns. Can you tell I feel lucky?

My wholesale fabric business is flourishing, as is the private label business that I began working with in 2008. And here’s an important bit of news: I’m launching my own line, Smita Paul Design! My new website, smitapauldesign.com, will go live in the next few weeks, so stay tuned to the blog for news and sneak peaks. I’ll be starting with scarves, but in March of 2012, women’s clothing will also become available. After three years of learning, I’m rediscovering my dream.

And as for this blog, I promise to be back more often with stories from my journey, interviews with other social entrepreneurs, and interesting bits of news from the handloom front. You might see a write up or two about other designers who are part of the “wear handloom” revolution as well.

Thanks to those of you who’ve stuck with me these many years, and thanks to any new readers just making their way to this blog. Feel free to comment away! Find me on Facebook (Smita Paul Design/Indigo Handloom) and on Twitter at @smitapaul.