Kara Weaves : Handloom weaving, design and craft revival

IBM & Kara Weaves

2012-02-22T06:38:00.000-08:00

What do IBM and Kara Weaves have in common? Not much, you'd think, but here is how our paths are crossing, right this instant:

In December 2010, we were contacted by Kabi Sherman of the CDC Development Solutions, an organization that facilitates social outreach programs around the world, including for the IBM Corporate Service Corps in India.

CDC contacts several organizations (like small businesses, educational institutions, NGOs, advocacy organizations, associations, local governments) working in social development areas and identifies those that are in need of management and technical assistance. They then put them through to a highly skilled group of volunteers from IBM offices around the world who visit and work with them for a period of 4 weeks to provide solutions.

Sounds too good to be true, right? When Kabi visited us, we had a long discussion of what we do and what would it take us to achieve our goals, as an organization. Here's a snapshot we took as Kabi was leaving:

From left: Kabi, Lakshmi, Indu, Sandhya and myself (Chitra).

After Kabi's visit, we worked to develop a Scope of Wrok for the IBM team and finally dialed it down to two things:
• Developing a sustainable marketing strategy including b-2-b strategies.
• Working on a Fair Trade certification for our supply chain proces.

The kickoff meeting was a few days ago; our IBM-ers are Lou Martin from Spain, Elke Heilemann from Germany and Jennifer Williams from the United States. They will be working with us at the studio for 4 weeks. A short article about this collaboration can be read on the India Infoline news website too. Just four days into the project we are already amazed by the energy the IBM team brings to our studio environment! More pictures and updates on the "cotton ladies" (as they like to call themselves) soon. We are really excited about what this month of collaboration will bring; stay tuned for more IBM news from here at Kara Weaves.

New year, New ideas!

2012-01-11T06:28:00.000-08:00

On this eleventh day of the new year, at Kara, we are extremely thankful for the wonderful people we have met and new work we've started over the past few weeks. I've been meaning to blog earlier, but was a bit caught up with family and travel. Here are some new products that will soon be online:

Block-printed scarves on a new weave: fresh off the looms

We have been quite busy printing some new fabrics for table linens and scarves. I've been looking forward to printing the scarves for a while, was so glad to see the creamy white yards of the scarf fabric arrive from the weavers!

Double colored block-prints on the scarves

Multicolored block-printed scarf in an ultra-soft cotton weave

Also fresh off the looms were these canvas-textured tablecloths and soft cotton napkins. The colors, patterns and textures are all new; can't wait till these are online soon!

Pastel colored tablecloth in a beautiful new weave and pattern!

Fawn, ash and tan come together for this earthy table cloth and napkin set

Bordeaux and ash with bold white stripes for another earthy toned tablecloth

Conversing about Co-operatives, Kudumbashree and Tagore

2011-12-18T21:03:00.000-08:00

Left to right: Indu Menon, Siddharth, Prof. Darryl Reed, Prof. Ananya Mukherjee-Reed, Chitra, Dr. P Gopalakrishnan, Anup Nair

On December 17th we received some exciting guests from York University in Canada. Professors Ananya Mukherjee-Reed, Darryl Reed and their son Siddharth dropped in to visit us accompanied by Anup Nair (whom they were visiting in Kerala for research on Kudumbashree). Over chai, we had a long conversation about the role of co-operatives and independent projects such as Kara in reviving rural artisanal work and economies.

Darryl also gave us some valuable insight on a Fair Trade certification process, which would help Kara Weaves broaden our client base and seek more institutional buyers for a sustainable market. Since we are in the midst of the Fair Trade certification process, this information was so timely! Ananya shared her experience talking with the enterprising and outspoken women of the Kudumbashree network in Kerala where she found women's empowerment translated into income generation and collective farming activities.

Out of a mutual respect, adoration (and a slight crush) on Rabindranath Tagore, our conversation soon veered to the social relevance of the work of thisNobel laureate and poet. Tagore was a strong advocate ofco-operatives (read Ananya's article about this here) and hand-weaving, both of which are things we at Kara endorse. We concluded with some wonderful ideas for collaborations and new directions at Kara; big thanks to Anup for bringing by such wonderful people to visit with us!

Grad Students + Kara Weaves

2011-12-14T06:47:00.000-08:00

At the office: Indu giving a small talk about the Kara Weaves story and process to the students and faculty

Last week, we were really happy to host a group of students from DePaul University Chicago and Kerala led by their faculty Prof Ramya Ramanath and Prof Vinay Raj respectively. The students were a mix of MBA and the Non-Profit Administration graduate program by both the schools.

We were happy to hear that what we had to share was of interest to both the groups of students since we are a business in the progress of registering ourselves as a non-profit organization. We prepared a little slideshow presentation (shown below) explaining our working process and how we engage with local and international communities.

We were also fortunate enough to be joined by Anup Nair and Tony Jose, the co-founders of Local Economic Development Society (LEDS), a visionary group providing local-to-local networking for micro-enterprises across Kerala.

Anup Nair gives an engaging talk about his work

Tony Jose (right) looks on as Prof. Ramya Ramanath (center) and students listen in

In his talk, Anup explained various aspects of their outreach program, including examples like the wonderful Kudumbashree, a women's empowerment group that uses micro-finance tools to sustain their work in Kerala.

Ramya and the students engage in some discussions after Anup Nair's talk

After the talks and a casual series of Q&A, we continued our discussions over a delicious traditional meal from Kerala, eaten on the banana leaf.

A traditional Kerala lunch on our porch overlooking some pepper vines!

It was nice to be flooded by questions by the students; I was so impressed by their astute observations and genuine interest in learning about how we work! Here's a casual video of everyone hanging out in the studio, looking at work and discussing.

Post-lunch, we accompanied the group of students and faculty to visit our local weaving co-operative, where they had the opportunity to meet the members, watch the process and even try a bit of weaving for themselves!

Watching Mani chettan, the master weaver, while he works on the towel weave

One of the students tries her hand at weaving for a bit, while her classmates cheer her on!

It gave us a good opportunity to explain to students the problems facing the handloom sector, especially in a difficult economy. Once again, it was great to see the energy the young group brought with them, as they busied themselves with taking notes and talking to everyone.

Watching the yarn being spun, while chatting with the members of the weaving co-operative

At the end of the day, which was as hectic as it was fun-filled, we were filled with such infectious enthusiasm and energy, from talking to the students. We're ever so indebted to Ramya Ramanth and Vinay Raj for this opportunity to meet their students and to Anup Nair and Tony Jose for sharing their valuable insights with everyone!

The Kara Weaves team, the weavers, faculty and students :)

Colors in the garden

2011-11-30T23:10:00.001-08:00

Here are some images from the garden around our new office space in Kerala. I'm so inspired by these hues for some new prints and patterns for the fabrics. Amidst the mix of bright tones in the images, watch out for some subtle and unexpected colors like soft grays and reds.

Block prints at Kara!

2011-11-14T14:09:00.001-08:00

The latest addition to our crew of block prints, these polka prints are on 100% cotton table napkins, on sale here!

New prints with a custom-carved linoleum block, on sale soon!

I've been meaning to write about our new block print collection, but have been so busy printing and shooting for the collection that almost ran out of time! So here is the update:

As this past summer drew to a close and our first promotional sale was off to a fabulous start (thank you shoppers!), we got back to the drawing board for some new directions. I've been wanting to work on surface printing for a very very long time, so I decided this was going to be the perfect opportunity to develop a new line for Kara Weaves.

Had so much fun printing this pattern for the festive collection. Printed using custom-cut rubber blocks.

I've kept the patterns geometric, keeping in mind the clean lines that we love at Kara. It obviously keeps the cutting on linoleum simpler, but I also like the textures I'm getting inside the blocks of color. Especially love seeing the natural fabric weave texture through the inks and how the colors of the print and weave interact with each other.

Detail of the print on the ZigZag table cloth, sold out but soon available in black!

I'm so thrilled to say that the first few editions are already sold out and I'm working on some new ones for next week! These lovelies are printed with non-toxic, water based inks that are heat-set for permanence. Here are some more pix of the making and product-shoot.

Some sunny bright stripes on the hair-wraps.


Been loving the binary code for a while now; here is a sample set I hung up above my desk, while they dried.


I was visiting my cousin Sandhya in New York city, so I got her to model the wraparound in Central Park :)

My beautiful friend Malika poses in the hair-wrap.

Is that an elephant? Amidst the polka dots? :)

Some of these are sold out, but we're taking custom orders; drop me a line for more!

New Weaves!

2011-11-14T13:41:00.001-08:00

Candy colored new stripe patterned bath towels on a super-soft new weave

As the holiday season approaches I wanted to keep you all posted on a few new things we have been developing at Kara. More specifically, about this incredibly soft new weave in cotton, that we've created. To say it feels like butter would be an understatement; on sale right here!

Check patterned towels in a soft blue

We've re-worked our all-time favorite bath towels with these delightful new candy stripes and check patterns. The first consignment from the weavers is in and looking sweet.

Candy colored table napkin sets, 15"x15"

The check pattern in black

We've also been experimenting with block-printing, as I've been mentioning on Twitter. Recently I made some prints on the new fabric and its such a delight to work with! Below are some pictures of the new block-prints on this fabric in our Tria pattern, which work really well as table-cloths.

We are still offering free shipping, so happy shopping!

Building our Network a.k.a. Ramesh Menon

2011-11-08T06:58:00.000-08:00

In the early days of our brainstorming sessions in Delhi (before we started the online store) we were very keen to work with larger corporate clients for wholesale orders. On one such impulse, we contacted FabIndia: their response was enthusiastic leading to several meetings to discuss possible collaborations.

Through these meetings was when we realized how unfeasible it was, to take on a mammoth corporation from our perspective. Their needs to sustain and grow as a company were different from our goals (to progress by developing the weaving industry). Considering their large overheads of maintaining several stores all over India, the price-per-item they needed would not have made it worth the while for our specific social objectives. I'm not saying FabIndia was at fault for not understanding us, just that we were both coming from different places and had different goals as organizations. We're still a bit sad that this collaboration could not work out :(

The next direction we looked towards was that of the hospitality industry, notably some big players in the game, who had the impact to create awareness and support for our work in India. Again, the common roadblock we encountered was the wholesale price of each item being not in sync with the operational budgets of the organization. Simply put, our products were too expensive for them and they all sent back notes of regret and dismissal.

Enter Ramesh Menon, stage left.

Ramesh Menon, co-owner of Dal Roti in Fort Kochi

Indu and Surya met Ramesh after a particularly hard rejection-filled meeting with another business owner in Kochi, in the summer of 2007. They were going past this fun looking restaurant called Dal Roti and decided to grab a bite there. Ramesh Menon, who happened to be the co-owner, was there too and they struck up a conversation.

Ramesh Menon's charming restaurant "Dal Roti" on Lily Street in Fort Kochi

Anyone who has met Ramesh will tell you that talking to him for the first time feels like you've always known him, such is the enthusiasm and energy of this dear man! Indu introduced our work at Kara and about the challenges we were facing when working with corporate clients. Being a long-time resident and business owner in the area, Ramesh immediately suggested meeting with some folks in the area who might share our vision.

One such meeting was with Babu Dominic, one of the co-owners of the CGH Earth group, one of the biggest and most beautiful hotels chains in the state. The CGH group and family behind it, unlike several other big hoteliers, comes from a strong tradition of respect for the environment and community; even as one of the largest in the hospitality industry in Kerala, they have never let got of this goal of theirs. A visit to any of their beautiful properties in Kerala is proof enough that this business respects and promotes sustainable green practices and the needs of a community.

Mr Babu Dominic was immediately impressed with our fabric and offered to promote it via their hotels. Apart from placing some of the work for sale in their hotel stores on a consignment basis, Mr Dominic also placed an order for several small hand-towels to be used in the CGH common washrooms across their properties. Several years and many more thousands of towel orders later, CGH put up an event for World Environment Day (in June 2010) where they selected a few organizations to showcase their work at the beautiful David Hall gallery in downtown Fort Kochi. We were one of the lucky few selected (among other favorite organizations such as the Kudumbashree), and got to work preparing for this event. At the event we got in touch with several other local businesses, among them the friendly folks of the Malabar House (a wickedly beautiful boutique hotel) that bought several of our bathrobes for their rooms.

Lakshmi and myself with our work at the David Hall show for World Environment Day by the CGH Earth group

Mr Babu Dominic really set the ball rolling for what would be a very long and fruitful collaboration with this wonderful business. A year after this first meeting with Mr Dominic and our big break with the local businesses in Kerala, Mr Dominic tragically and suddenly passed away of a heart condition. We at Kara will always remember this wonderful man for the visionary he was and the good will he had toward social causes in his community. Our ties with the CGH family have only strengthened since then as they continue to be one of our biggest corporate clients and promoters.

Through Ramesh Menon, we also met Renji and Rose, a fun couple who run a breathtakingly beautiful hotel at Mararikulam at Alleppy in Kerala. They've also been wholesale buyers with us and let us sell our products through their hotel shop. Apart from hotels, Ramesh also put us through to several small stores (Sivaah) in the area who support handmade work and regularly buy from us. Apart from the contacts, he has also provided us invaluable advice on several issues with

Though we have also been contacted independently by many local businesses through our website (case-in-point: the lovely folks at the Alila Hotels in Bangalore), we tip our hat to Ramesh and his infectious enthusiasm for helping us connect with our community. Every small business needs a catalyst to get started, ours was found over delicious lunch at Dal Roti :)

Growing Up & Scaling Down

2011-11-03T15:17:00.000-07:00

Gold-trimmed shirt made of the sheer kasavu cotton fabric; a trial product we created back in 2005.

When we started Kara Weaves back in 2006-2007, we wanted it all. And like any new found passion, we went a bit overboard with having a vast product range that included not just the towels and robes (that you now see on our website), but also cushion covers, curtains, bedspreads, pillow occurs, duvet covers, bags, skirts, shirts, wraparounds, table cloths, tea cozies, table napkins with several colors and patterns for each. At the time we thought the best way to plan the inventory was to let our shoppers decide what products worked and what did not. Did that strategy work for us?

Clockwise from top: bed linens, sheer silver motif curtains, bags, cushion and curtain panels, tea cosy and napkins

Unfortunately, this turned out to be an expensive experiment: our stocks of products made of the fine cotton+metallic weave (kasavu) languished away while the towel (thorthu) products just flew off the racks. But why so?

Reason 1: Maybe this was since the big press features we got during that time focused on the towel fabrics more.
Reason 2: We also attributed this to the fact that at a given time, a household can never have enough towels or bathrobes, but you could only have a certain number of curtains, cushion or duvet covers.
Reason 3: It might be hard for anyone to make an impulse buy with a product (curtain or duvet covers) that directly impacts the color scheme of your room or that needs to conform to exact measurements.

A custom-designed jacquard motif in gold for the sheer curtain panels

Another difficulty we had (in retrospect, duh!) was being such a small team and trying to keep track of such a complex inventory. With some of the products like the cute little bags above, we ran into issues of keeping up with fabrication quantities. We gradually narrowed down our product range and firmed it up to what you're seeing currently. That's not to say we don't care for these products anymore; I'm sharing these images with you so you know how wonderful these fabrics truly are!

The best use we found for the extra stock of these beautiful curtains and bed linens was to gift them to our wonderful friends and families. In the meantime, we're actively working on adding products more carefully to our repertoire now. I've put up a few of the sheer panels in my tiny Boston apartment; so many years later, I still love the light through them!

The curtains I still use: those from our first Kara experiment years ago!

A north-south collaboration: Khamir + Kara Weaves

2011-11-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

Design of our invite for the show together with Khamir

In 2008, a year after our collaboration with the Banyan, we got in touch with Khamir, a non-government organization from the northern state of Gujarat. Through a chance re-connection with some of her earlier collaborators while in Ahmedabad (the wonderful Sushma Iyengar), Indu heard of the wonderful work of the Khamir resouce center as a way to revitalize Kachchh's creative industries. She contacted the director Meera Goradia and learnt that they was seeking to do a sale & exhibition of their work in Bangalore with a collaborator. Upon hearing what we do, Meera asked if we would be interested: and of course we said yes!

A quick snapshot of Sushma Iyengar with Surya at the show

We decided to do the event in early October, so we could target the festive season of Divali in India. What we were hoping for was to showcase out work at a venue that catered to a clientele that understood the value of handmade work and the support the artisan communities needed to sustain themselves. Indu again asked her fantastic social network (shout out to Anita Dumra!) and found out about the Raintree Cafe and Boutique that could be a good venue for such an event. This colonial style 75 year old "bungalow" with its beautiful garden and shop space was a dream-location for a show. We contacted them and they were open to working together and spreading the word! Once again, our team was at the drawing board, charting out details of this exciting event.

The Raintree Boutique and Cafe in Bangalore

The Raintree Boutique's colonial style bungalow

I was in charge of designing the entire event branding. Of all the design projects I had undertaken for Kara, this proved to be the most challenging as this involved the identity of another brand as well. The invite had to have the common grounds of both the organizations, yet not be too specific to each and still look interesting enough. We had budget limitations, so we I created some custom typography and went with a non-photographic treatment. I was quite happy with how it turned out and integrated with the spirit of the event. We got them printed at a small rural letter-press printer near our office in Kerala; the press was part of the school for the hearing impaired children run by the Assisi Convent in Neerpara. The handmade look of the invite worked really well with both our brand images, most of all both the teams were pretty thrilled with them!

Front and back design of the invite with a typographic drawing on handmade paper

The single-color invite design with write-ups about both our projects.

At the event, the products from both our organizations complemented the other perfectly: the intricate, textural and colorfully thick weaves of Khamir sat really well with the breezy, white, tonal fabrics in our collection. One catered to the cozy winter while the other favored a light summer. The crowds responded really well to this collaboration and the event was a huge success for us, both commercially and socially. The large guest list of the Raintree boutique along with our pooled resources in Bangalore, ensured we had a very nice turn out during the days of the show.
ps: I wish I had more pictures of the wonderful people at Khamir, but alas, could not find them in our archives!

Indu, Lakshmi and Surya adding the finishing touches to the set-up

Lakshmi with our event-signage at the Raintree boutique

We also got several close family members involved in the event: cousins, aunts and more! They all pitched in during the event too, taking turns being the "sales persons" at the event and providing guests with information and flyers about our work. Our dads and husbands also joined in the fun, taking an occasional break. Here are some "unofficial" pictures from before and after the event.

Poonam and Piya, my fun cousins help Indu and Surya set-up for the show.

Mid-installation, Indu and Lakshmi unwind a bit

Lakshmi demo's the hair-wrap while Poonam looks on :)


My dad and uncle who helped with the billing, take a well deserved break for some laughs

The Banyan + meeting the President of India

2011-11-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

left-right: Revathy, Sreedevi, Vandana of the Banyan, Surya and Indu

We love to meet people who share our world views and what we love even more is the opportunity to get to work with them. In this post I wanted to briefly cover an endearing collaboration we did in 2007 with the Banyan via our co-founder Revathy. At the opening ceremony, we also got to meet the (ex-)President of the nation, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam! From collaborations to meeting inspiring leaders: how did this all come about?

Revathy, apart from being a brilliant film director and actress, is also actively involved with a number of non-government organizations. Once such gem of an organizations is The Banyan, which reaches out to people with mental illness, rescuing them from the streets of Chennai to care and rehabilitate them. Started almost two decades ago by Vandana Gopikumar and Vaishnavi Jayakumar, this organization is now one of the strongest voices in India supporting the welfare of the mentally ill homeless.

In the summer of 2007, the Banyan was setting up a new center outside Chennai; they hoped this to turn into a venue where visitors (to this highly picturesque area) could purchase handicrafts made by the rehabilitated members and learn about their work. Revathy called us and asked if we would be interested in putting up our products for sale on a profit-sharing basis at this newly developed space. We immediately agreed and Indu got in touch with Vandana and Vaishnavi to work out the details.

Sreedevi, myself and Surya, on the train to Chennai before the event

After the months of preparation of the products, flyers and brochures, our team was finally on our way to Chennai for the opening ceremony. We were bone-tired from preparing for the show, shipping out stuff, but excited for our day ahead in Chennai!

Sreedevi, Surya, Revathy and Indu, wearing handwoven saris at the event!

We trekked up the ECR road and arrived at a beautifully set up space: made of red bricks, the center consisted of a cluster of sloping-roofed "huts". We met up with Revathy and spent a lovely afternoon meeting everyone; the venue was inspiring and so ideally located by the sea, with comfortable residential spaces, work areas and meeting rooms, all constructed in an open plan.

Revathy and I hang out near our merchandise in the shop space

We set up our spaces and prepped to receive the guest-of-honor: the much loved ex-President of India Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam! In him, the team at the Banyan have always found a staunch supporter; so when they were developing this new center, it was but natural for him to be a big part of it. In many ways the work they do is a true embodiment of his convictions and ideals.

A.P.J Abdul Kalam at the venue, amidst the crowds

Pres. Kalam giving a motivating talk to the crowds at the event

After the ceremonial planting of a banyan sapling, President Kalam went on to give an inspirational talk about the need for more sustainable development initiatives like this (images above). To say that Dr. Kalam was energetic was an understatement, as he greeted everyone and keenly listened to what people had to say. The heartfelt compassion and encouragement that radiated from his personality was all too evident that day. It was cute to watch how he often evaded his bodyguards to pop out and meet people spontaneously! We felt truly grateful and honored to be a part of this day!

Surya with the Bollywood movie star Viveik Oberoi

Viveik Oberoi, the Bollywood glam-star was also one of the guests, providing all the glitz to this event. It was good to see celebrities use their media-magnetism to benefit worthwhile causes. Did I mention how crowded an event gets if a beloved ex-President and a Bollywood hero show up? :)

Unwinding at snack time with the team

The Kara team with Vaishnavi of the Banyan, second from right, chatting about our work together.

What was the outcome of this collaboration? To be frank, our sales from this space were not through the roof or anything. Where it was invaluable to our young brand was to meet like-minded people and put ourselves out there in the community to get some valuable feedback. More than anything, it gave us an opportunity to closely interact with some wonderfully passionate people and learn from the best. Something we have learnt over the years as we assess our growth: the people you meet give your brand and your mission a powerful platform to exist upon.

PS- On a related note, we are always open for ideas to work together, do drop us a line if you have a suggestion!

Handmade drawings

2011-10-28T06:14:00.000-07:00

A bit of a flashback: after Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge wrote about our work in July 2008, things at our small home-office in Kerala got pretty hectic, as I mentioned in my previous post. It was in this crazy moment that I felt like we needed a unique way to thank those first few shoppers who placed orders with us.

I started sketching some handmade thank-you cards to add to the first shipments that left our office. It was so much fun making them that it quickly turned into an obsession: before long we had sent out over a hundred cards! Basically it turned into a side-project where I tried to find as many ways to illustrate the words "Thank You"; above and below are a few:

These cards were all water-color and ink drawings measuring approximately small 4" squares. I wanted our brand to be thought of as approachable, fun, experimental and most of all: personal. This simple act of shopping meant a lot to our small business with a social objective, so right from the moment they opened the parcel to the super-soft fabrics that were in it, we wanted the whole experience to be special.

Here's a snap of one set of towels before and after they got into the hand-stitched cloth "envelopes".

One of the Thank-You cards, all packed up with the towels.

Hand-sewn cloth packaging as required by our postal service

I started posting pictures of the cards on our website at the time, just because I thought they added a fun look to the brand. People sent us sweet notes about getting the cards with the towels, so we thought we were on the right track. What I did not expect were the requests that started coming for the cards! At the time our hands were so full with maintaining a smooth flow of work that we could not really take up the offer.

My favorite helper during my drawing-spree... miss the fun times with this one!

With the launch of our new website + block-prints a few weeks ago, I've been toying with the idea of restarting this on fabric. What do you think? :)

Meeting The World: Online

2011-10-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

The first test of our branding strategy came about on the morning of August 2008, when Indu casually logged in to look at our email. Our e-commerce site had launched a few weeks ago and so far, the site had floated along in relative internet obscurity. All of a sudden that morning, the inbox was almost at maximum capacity with orders from new clients, pouring in by the minute! In a few days we cleared our first stock of fabrics and soon our site boasted the banner: Sold Out! How this this happen?

The singular reason: Design*Sponge. The incredibly well-curated design blog by Grace Bonney had done a little feature about our work the evening before (well, the day before, according to US time). And suddenly our brand and online store was in the spotlight!

It all started when, in early 2008, I emailed Grace to share with her our website (with a pdf catalog) to get feedback about our work. She was very encouraging but felt an e-commerce option was needed as her clients would want to shop immediately. Over the next few months Indu and I worked to set up a payment gateway with abcpayments.com, the Indian company. I connected with Grace again and she responded enthusiastically; a few days later we were featured on her site!

The days after that article, our make-shift office in Sreedevi's home looked like the command center of a mini-war. Everyone, including my father (in the picture above, along with Indu, Sreedevi and Surya), had been recruited into folding, packing and mailing off hundreds of packages of our hand-woven fabrics. With that one post by Grace, Kara Weaves was a reality and thousands of people around the world were getting excited about the work!

To Indu, the anthropologist, and me the graphic designer, this was a sign that our instincts were right: it was unbelievable to see so many folks respond to our brand and support what we believed in (the picture above has Indu and Surya taking a break from the packing and shipping, still in a daze over the aftermath of the design*sponge feature). It was also a reaffirmation in continuing with an online strategy, something we had toyed with as we tried hard to figure out a niche for the product. By going online, we could reach out to the world, yet continue to work locally.

The design*sponge feature had a domino effect for our publicity as various design websites like Apartment Therapy, Daily Grommet (a super-fun video segment), Katy Elliott, Lucky Mag, Travelicious and print features from large publications like in Better Homes and Gardens, Plenty Mag and Hobby Farm Home started to happen. This rolled out during the next couple of years, all the time building our faith on the impact of independent design journalism.

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A few weeks ago (in September 2011) when Grace Bonney launched her new book in Boston, I stood in line at the book-signing event to meet her and personally thank her for how she had impacted our work. After all these years, it was wonderful to finally meet the person who had helped jump-start our work and get this wonderful fabric the attention it deserved! Thanks ever so much, Grace and the d*s team!

Designing the identity

2011-10-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

As we started discussing the idea of setting up Kara Weaves, back in 2005 and 2006, we often went back to the reasons why this fabric was little known outside Kerala. It had nothing to do with the quality of the weave or the softness of the texture or the strength and durability, all of which it had. It came down to how people perceived the fabric: as dowdy, old-fashioned, dysfunctional, with lackluster colors and patterns.
One of the basic premises of graphic design is to work with altering a sense of perception in the viewer/consumer. I was using this theory ad infinitum as I worked for a high-end branding agency in New Delhi, making it work its magic for clients in real estate, fashion, restaurants, storefronts and more. As we pondered this question in handloom, I decided that was precisely what we needed: some smart branding.

Only through a shift in perception of the fabric would we be able to establish a demand for the fabric, and through this demand we could probably revive the industry. As I write this now, it sounds so theoretical, but I assure you, at the time we were working off a simple instinct. We set about designing products that would appeal to a global audience and worked on creating a design identity to go with it. We called our brand “Kara Weaves”; kara in Malayalam means the thin striped border that is the typical term used to identify these fabrics (a towel with a yellow kara or a sarong with a silver kara). The word also stands for the shoreline, a significance we love, since Kerala is a state of beaches and backwaters with plenty of beautiful shoreline. Here's a doodle I had drawn during the time:

I drafted out the first set of logos, we brainstormed on it and settled upon the current version on this masthead. I was looking for a simple mark that would be readable at all sizes, and yet have the defining characteristic of our fabric's pattern. The fact that its geometric form made it a breeze on die-cut stamps was an added perk!

We settled on this verdant shade of green, a color we felt unified the idea of re-birth, nature and most of all, the feeling of being in Kerala. The brand identity is something we've held onto quite closely since the past few years as we design new products with simple bold colors and sharp patterns, all the time retaining the logo either in the green or reversed out on our images. We put it on our business cards, tags, flyers and posters, even hand-drawn on the back of some thank-you cards!

Starting a Start-Up

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Folks often ask us about how we started Kara Weaves; so here's the whole story:

Indu, myself (Chitra), Sreedevi and Revathy

We are a small hand-loom weaving project run primarily by Indu Menon and myself, Chitra. Our co-enthusiasts/ co-partners are B. Sreedevi (a hand-loom expert and dearest supporter) and Revathy Menon (a noted Indian film actress and director who is one of our most enthusiastic motivators). We did not intentionally start it as a women-only organization; the fact that we are is purely co-incidental. :)

A constant source of encouragement for our work comes from Lakshmi Menon, who steps in as a catalyst for our brainstorming sessions, travel to the weaving centers, photo shoot, product design and our invaluable sounding board. Celine George, the Delhi-based HR professional is also someone we connect with, when developing new ideas and strategists. A.R Sathish, an entrepreneur and business professional in Kochi, was also instrumental in providing us advice when we initially started our partnership firm with a lot of insight on managing our finances and paperwork. Our spouses (Indu's and mine) have also, over the years, provided a lot of feedback and objective criticism to help our brand develop and are an integral part of our core advisory group.

One of the weavers at our local handloom weaving co-operative in Kanjiramattom

But current stories aside, how did our brand really come about to be?

I'm going to rewind a bit to the winter of 2005 in New Delhi. Indu and I had just moved back to India after several years abroad: Indu as a social anthropologist in the Faculty of Medicine in Kuwait and myself a freshly minted graphic designer with an MFA from Paris. Almost a decade ago Indu had co-authored a book on Women Weavers of South India while working at the IIM in Ahmedabad. On a whim, she decided to revisit some of those weaving communities in Kerala and was appalled to see how poorly they were doing. Several visits to Kerala and several conversations later, we felt frustrated by how these talented artisans who were ironically languishing for lack of demand for their work.

Mani chettan, the master weaver at our local weaving co-operative in Kerala

Adding together our collective skills of social anthropology, and commercial design + branding, we figured that what this fabric needed was a “shift” in perception. Initially we established a partnership venture between Indu, Sreedevi, Revathy and Suryakala. (Surya has since recently, moved on to other projects, though she is still one of our dearest supporters and enthusiasts).

In early 2006 we contacted several weaving co-operatives in Kerala and started to establish what would turn out to be a long and fruitful collaboration. These government-run co-operatives were set up in the 1960′s across the state to support the hand-weaving industry. The co-operatives were a mixed bag of success stories: some units had hundreds of weavers and flourished whereas others were reduced to a handful of weavers, impoverished and unmotivated. The influx of machine-made cloth in recent times, the lack of demand for this slow-woven fabric and the poor pay in this industry were some key factors bringing down these weaving co-operatives.

Kalyaniamma spins the cotton yarn, at our local weaving co-operative

We decided to engage with some of these dwindling units, a few which were our local weaving centers (pictured above), and started to chart out a plan to uplift them. By working with a combination of the flourishing and the suffering co-operatives, we charted out a plan that we felt would be the most appropriate way to impact the suffering units.   After several months of experimenting with the design and fabrication of the fabric products, we came up with a variety of pieces ranging from bath item to curtains to bed linens.

The fabrics we initially worked with: Thorthu on the left and Kasavu on the right

We worked with two types of fabrics at the time: the hyper absorbent towel weave and the fine cotton weave with metallic threads. Being our first foray into commercial retail, we decided this variety would help us determine which products were better received than the others. In hindsight this looks like a big risk, but we decided “experiment” was going to be our middle name. The fact that we were outsiders to commercial retail may also have been a big factor in that decision, but we were in uncharted waters with our strange combination: an online store + Kerala hand-loom + a lot of graphic design and social anthropology expertise. (More on this in a later post!)

Since we started this project in a small and self-financed way, our first instinct was to set up a website to promote the work. This way we could reach out to a larger audience at the same time be best suited to the small team we were. Our first site consisted of a simple landing page with a downloadable pdf of products.

Screenshot of our first webpage and online catalog

And thus karaweaves.com flickered to life one rainy morning in July, on the new broadband internet connection that had just arrived in Kanjiramattom. Hello world!

Welcome!

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Welcome to our blog! We hope this is a place for you to discover a bit about the people who run Kara Weaves with some behind-the-scenes stories. This is also a place we write about the things we love. The picture above is from the fields behind our little office in Kerala, a space we look towards for inspiration!
My name is Chitra and I am one-half of the main team at Kara Weaves. In this blog, I will be writing about how we started, the fun adventures we've had over the years at Kara and the things we are working on currently. Happy reading!