Growing up as an army kid, I lived in several regions of India with my parents and always marvelled the various weaves my mom would procure from every posting and lovingly store them in her steel trunk which travelled with us from station to station. Even today this trunk sits proudly next to her bed covered with a block printed sheet. Time to time we pull out some of her sarees and my daughters ‘OOH and AAH” over the rich textures and weaves!!

 

I grew up to train as a doctor and got completely immersed in my studies. Only in my forties did I start dabbling in textiles and slowly got fascinated by the richness, variety, diversity of the handlooms of our country. I then started reading about our rich heritage and slowly developed a deep passion for textiles and crafts. For the last 7/8 years I have been developing this as a hobby and it was only during the pandemic that I created my instagram page “house of weaves” as I was getting distress calls by lots of weavers and artisans I knew , who were unable to sell their products and keep at asking me to buy stocks or give loans etc.

 

Eventually I decided to develop a platform for those of them who were unable to do so themselves due to being technologically challenged or not having the means and resources to do so.

 

Since House of weaves, is an ode to these weavers and artisans, we try to keep the products as genuine and true to the real craft form although I love doing some new concepts, fusions and my own designs. I am no expert in this field and have burnt my fingers several times. However I endeavour in my own small way to keep our traditional weaves and crafts alive and provide a source of employment to those craftsmen, who I know are genuine and good at their craft.

 

Given that handlooms and handmade provide the second largest source of income/ employment in India and also the carbon foot print of handlooms is much much smaller than machine made goods, I feel there is a need for all of us to adapt to wearing more of these and discourage fast fashion and cheaper alternatives.

 

One of the biggest challenges we face is the looming fake look alike that have cropped up as these art forms become popular , like fake kalamkaris, banarasis, ajrkahs etc. We as a consumer have a responsibility as well to question the authenticity of a craft rather than look for the cheapest alternative according to the latest in fashion. In my view, it is a bigger disservice to wear a fake knock off then not wear one at all as it kills the craft at the grassroots level. If you can’t afford it, wear something more affordable till you can buy a genuine lovingly hand crafted piece!!

 

I hope you will appreciate our endeavour and effort to promote sustainable, genuine hand crafted hand woven textiles and give us your love.

 

Thank you ,

 House of Weaves

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