Our Story

The Journey of Woven riches 

By Namita & Reea, The Mother Daughter Duo of WR

Our story began when Reea & I decided to tie our Indian roots a little tighter, whilst doing our bit to help others. I had grown up around a textile background, seeing mounds of fabric stacked from floor to ceiling. People were investing in mass productions and things were getting bigger, but inside my heart, I was still stuck to slow and eco-friendly practices, with no machinery in sight. 

We at woven riches, are committed to operating ethically, with integrity and transparency. As a part of our social value, we strongly believe in truly respecting our team’s talents which hugely reflects in our products. All our products are handmade from start to finish, from hand sketching the designs to making the products.

 

Why do we love Block Printing?

The entire process of Block Printing is eco-friendly and sustainable. The teak wood is carved by hand to create the desired pattern & dyes are made using natural products where possible. Getting the exact colour takes time, but the vibrancy of the final product makes the wait worthwhile. The blocks are dipped in the dye and ‘stamped’ by hand, individually across the mounds of pure cotton, ready to be stuffed and stitched into your favourite WR product.

We frequently reuse the patterned blocks over multiple collections to save re-making them, so you may spot a few similar patterns in our products!

 

Women in Work

We also work with a group of ladies who specialise in Kantha work. This requires hours of hard work and patience, taking 8 days to complete one throw. Looking at how neat the stitching is, speaks a thousand words about how they love to work. It helps us to know that India is moving forward with the times, breaking social barriers with more women working and bringing in an income for their families.

 

The future

Our aim in the future is to provide more work to these artisans that are hugely undervalued for their work. We work with a small family where Pawan is our skilled block printer. He has two adorable kids who are a part of the generation of new technology. When I ask them what would they like to be when they grow up the answer is either a teacher or engineer.

It fills us with joy that they have these dreams to aspire to and an education to allow them to achieve it and rightly so because every child should get a fair chance in their life.

But what happens to block printing after this generation fades? We are trying to preserve this beautiful art for just that little bit longer, holding onto it with both hands. Hopefully it will continue just enough for it to be appreciated for another while.

We are at our infancy stage with goal to support artisans and their families and bring some soul and stories to our textiles. We are still far away from our goal but the journey continues.

 

From Hand to Heart,

With love,

Woven Riches