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Hello dear readers,

As you've noticed we've not been very regular at updating this blog. That's because we have been so busy with making new textiles and posting updates to our social media accounts. You can meet us there to see photos, videos and fun links we like, from all around the interwebs. 

Here are the places where we're now focused on:

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

See you all soon! 

-xoxo
Chitra

NY and the GF debut

Here are some updates from our first ever trade fair in NYC this past weekend:

This was our entire luggage for our booth set up, products and our clothes for the week!

The time is 6 am, I'm a bundle of nerves, Prashant is probably looking through our latest planning updates

Our booth, as we found it 2 days before the event. So much work, so much potential (and so much stress!)

Here I'm stringing up the hand-lettered signage, Prashant is making hooks to hang them: DIY + improv!

This was the messiest it looked, before it all got better!

This view helped as we worked non-stop to get the space lookin spiffy!

Day 1: hello New York, all bright and sunny!

The newspaper-head wearing the hair towel added a lot of quirkiness to our install, hehe!

Super happy with the way our fabric and re-purposed cardboard signs turned out!

We got a lot of compliments for using the yarn as a simple and fun way to hang up our fabrics :)

These dudes looked ridiculously tropical in the sunlight!

Cardboard, white markers and twine = friendly handmade signs

The daylight at the Javits center did a lot to promote the outdoor and comfy nature of these fabrics!

This little Ganesha kept an eye on our stuff for us; thank you sir!  ♥

We also had a bunch of friends stop by our space too: thanks Shivangi, Brookes and Nupur for all the fun conversation and help with everything! Carli came by with her team to do a little interview about our work for Quirky; here's the article, yay!

So grateful that our little debut was so warmly recieved, cant wait for what's next! xo, Chitra.

2013 reasons to get excited!

Its three months since my last post here and what a busy time it's been! Firstly a very Happy New Year to all of you :)

Here at Kara we've been frantically working on some great new wholesale orders as well as gearing up for our debut at the New York Gift Fair in the juried Global Handmade section!

We've divided up the work pretty evenly: Indu has been handling the production and follow up of all the weaving work in Kerala and I am working on all the trade fair set up details here in Boston. As I sit here going over my million checklists and looking at the busy few weeks ahead, I'm also giddy with excitement for all the wonderful people we'll have a chance to meet!

So if you're there, stop by booth #532 to meet us!

Summer 2012 Updates

• Our first ever Free product giveaway (yes, its all free!) contest on Facebook has just started! All you have to do is upload a favorite summer picnic photo to win free fabrics! More details here.

• Indu was interviewed by the Women's Web Magazine, here's the read.

• Unbelievably successful Annual Clearance Sale of our previous collections. It ends on August 15 2012, so you've still got a few days to get the best deals!

• Guest blogging at Yours Sustainably, thanks Jessica!

• Our fabrics are now available at the Good Earth stores in India and Terrain (Anthropologie's sister concern) in the United States.

• We worked with Wendell Rodricks to create this custom threaded shawl based on his design. So pumped to see it on the runway at the Lakme India Fashion Week in Mumbai this past week!

• Our Fair Trade certification process made some headway as we were visited by the Fair Trade Forum India's team to verify details of our team and collaborators (including the weaving co-operatives). As we hope to hear back from them, we're keeping our fingers crossed for the green signal :)

• We experimented with some thicker weave techniques, with some lovely results.

• Sarah Lin of Ellie Fun Day visited our studio and wrote up a sweet article on her blog with some nice photos!

•  Lakshmi Rammohan, the director of Dreamweaver Weddings commissioned us to create some custom giveaways and bride+groom sets for some upcoming events for Fall 2012. This is still in underway, but we're so excited to work with this incredibly talented event manager!

That time of the year..

We are re-organizing our inventory and making room for the new collections. So, we've decided to give our US-based shoppers a discount on the previous collections with a blowout sale. (International shoppers, we love you too, and are putting up a bigger storewide sale very soon!)

Bath towels, Picnic mats, Wraps or a Table cloth: now at $10 per color!

Things are selling faster than I can share this update, so I'd suggest you make your way over here to see if there's something you like. Happy Summer!

Set of ten table napkins for $30, only till these stocks last!

Conversing about Co-operatives, Kudumbashree and Tagore

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 this Nobel laureate and poet. Tagore was a strong advocate of co-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!

Block prints at Kara!

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.

Building our Network a.k.a. Ramesh Menon

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

Growing Up & Scaling Down

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?

Handmade drawings

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:

 

Meeting The World: Online

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?

Designing the identity

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.