Good Karma Party

Eve Blossom of Lulan Artisans

2011-10-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

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

Get Your Handloom Jeans Here!

2011-10-20T06:27:00.000-07:00

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

Art for Artists’ Sake: The State of Handloom

2011-10-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

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

The Wink

2011-10-18T06:39:00.000-07:00

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

The Fair Trade Certification Process

2011-10-13T15:19:00.000-07:00

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

Handloom in the 'Hood

2011-10-12T06:20:00.000-07:00

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

Village Inspiration

2009-07-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

Dispatch: InspirationI went to the village and was renewed. I always feel so inspired by going to the people who make the goods: to see their life, their struggles and the art they so carefully produce. It really amazes me, even all these years later..so much effort, so much struggle!I filmed this man making a jamdani sari and interviewed him afterwards. He was 33 and almost completely illiterate

Business Meetings: Indian style

2009-07-04T07:58:00.000-07:00

Business Meetings: Indian styleToday I went to one of the oldest markets of Calcutta to buy some silicia gel packets.One of my customers asked for some handloom silk scarf samples last season. We were in the midst of monsoon season - so we didn't have much time. Since they use the sun to dry out everything and there was a week of continuous rain, the scarves showed up on her desk in New York City

Visiting Kali

2009-07-04T05:45:00.000-07:00

Dispatch – Kali TempleI went to the Kali Temple tonight. The manager of the hotel warned against it – trying to steer me toward the more sane, more organized and basically more civil Birla Temple. I’ve been there before and it is very nice indeed – an all white-marble structure beautifully lit with modern concepts such as orderly passages, fans and an air-conditioned office for the management

Dhaba Diving

2009-07-03T10:39:00.001-07:00

June 8th – IndiaDhaba Diving:I’m on my way to the village to check on production and quite frankly, I’m starving…we left at the crack of dawn to avoid the heat and traffic from Calcutta.I have to go check on a bunch of handloom scarves that an American corporate client of mine ordered. This is really Suchita’s job – and this is one of the reasons I had to fire her. But it’s okay – since I always

Energy vs. Organic

2009-07-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

Energy vs. OrganicPeople ask me all the time whether my stuff is made with organic cotton or dyed with vegetable dyes. So let’s just get this out of the way: the answer is no.The entire fashion world seems to focus on organic cotton in their attempt to be more ‘green.’ While I applaud their motivation and efforts, I don’t think using purely organic cotton is ever going to satisfy the world’s

Nuapatna

2009-07-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

Everyone Should Know About NuapatnaI started this company in 2003 after more than a dozen years as a journalist. It was on a story that I discovered the immense richness of handmade cloth. My first encounter with ‘handloom was in Nuapatna, a tiny village near the eastern coast of India in the state of Orissa.The villagers of Nuapatna have been weaving handloom cloth – mostly saris –

Handloom is the Ultimate in Green Fashion

2009-07-03T07:53:00.000-07:00

The Ultimate in Green Fashion:I started Indigo Handloom as a social project: I thought I would put to use my own creative urges and recast the cloth into something more modern, sell it in North America and provide a living for myself as well as for the villagers.Along the way, I discovered that handloom is extremely good for the environment. It has almost zero impact upon the earth. No energy is

Welcome to the Good Karma Party!

2009-06-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

The Good Karma Party!In this blog you will witness my adventures as I build my social entrepreneurial company "Indigo Handloom." I named it such because indigo was the first color and handloom, in effect, was the first art form. My mission is to create high quality textiles by using the ancient craft of handloom and to create new markets for handloom weavers....as well as make a living for