FABRICLORE

Fabriclore is one of India's leading online fabric store for handcrafted fabric, paying tribute to the country’s rich textile heritage.  They closely work with artisans across 14 states and showcase more than twenty textile crafts, including customized ones curated & co-designed by their team of professional textile designers & artisans.

Says co-founder Anupam Arya, ‘ Our vision since inception roughly three years back, has been to promote our talented pool of artisans, create sustainable social parity and enable them to adapt to the changing landscape of the industry, while at the same time not letting their roots dry up. Within this short journey, we have independently become the top brand for artisanal textile and over 75,000+ customers have shown their love. We have established our own Studio Warehouse in Jaipur where fabrics undergo strict quality checks and are managed through a systematic inventory system thoughtfully designed to cater to global customers and none of this could have been achieved without the support of Startup Oasis in scaling up our enterprise to this level’.

DRESSFOLK

Founded by Nitin Mehrotra, Dressfolk came into existence with the idea to convert Indian #crafts into comfort contemporary clothing and making it more relevant to the modern maverick community of women. Dressfolk was started from the bonuses and savings from Nitin’s corporate stint. Today, they deliver products to 22 states in the country and 4 countries apart from India, all through their own website.

Dressfolk works directly with the artisans who handcraft each garment and have high control over quality and sizing. This is also the reason why they are able to pay the artisans fairly.

The Artisan remains at the core of Nitin’s. He wants to change the “crooked supply chain”. The artisans and tailors are “squeezed the most to churn out profits.”

Whilst he ensures that he uses azo-free dyes and desists “man-made fibers”, the customer remains key to helping the artisan get his or her rights. His idea is to constantly bring something new to the market, use the process of Indian ethnic crafts from different geographies to make contemporary wear and provide them at affordable prices.

SACCL is where he feels he connected with entrepreneurs who were facing or faced challenges he was facing and it provided the platform to learn from each other. In the words of Nitin: "I personally a lot about the product because of it. Getting connected with mentors, SACCL team and other cohort members have really helped in reaching out to the right artisans, weavers, and other stakeholders.”

A piece of advice for others wanting to take the plunge, ”Jump into it only if you are sure that you want to work towards solving a problem and once you’ve taken the plunge to be persistent and patient.”

KALAGHAR

‘Belonging to a Marwari business family, the idea of creating our own business had always excited us. And being inclined towards the social sector, we wanted to build a business which created social value. While I was doing my internship with Milaap, an online micro lending startup, my elder sister and I often discussed about the struggle of small SHGs and rural artisans to sell their products because of lack of exposure to new technologies and trends. So, one day the idea of starting something which amalgamates the skills of SHGs, NGOs and artisans with the aesthetic sense of the new generation designers cropped up. Anyone aware of the e-commerce scenario would say that it wasn’t the most novel of the ideas. So the question which now faced us was, “ what makes you different?" At KalaGhar, we believe in the idea of “arteutil” i.e useful arts. We don’t want to push handicrafts into homes but want to create products which add values to the homes of our customers. Products with utility and culture.’

This was the sentiment which inspired Shipra and Megha Agarwal to start Kalaghar in Odisha, which engages with grass-root artisans, NGOs and self-help groups, towards livelihood creation and economic empowerment of all stakeholders including the artisans.  

Kalaghar currently works with about 50 artisans, mostly women, who are skilled in Sabai grass weaving, besides working with Dhokra craftspeople as well. The vision is to build an ecosystem that provides basic amenities like quality primary education and basic health services for the involved craftspeople and their families and also to promote heritage craft from Odisha, creating value for each stakeholder  including the end customer. Through the INVENT program Startup Oasis has partnered with Kalaghar, attempting to evolve it into a holistic, self sustainable, technology enabled enterprise, through business and financial modelling, market linkages and developing customer friendly product offers through appropriate design intervention.

KHANAK

‘Chicken on the loom’….by Khanak Design Studio, founded by Radhesh and Mudita, textile designers and former alumni of IICD, is enabled and empowered by the INVENT program of Startup Oasis. Deriving pulp and fibre from chicken feather waste is an incredible initiative positively impacting nature, society, humanity.

The process involves natural protein fiber being developed from chicken butchery garbage which otherwise would have been left to be wasted giving rise to disease and malady. In the age of assembly line, environmentally damaging, volume production by machine, the super innovative, handspun, handwoven fabric fashioned out of wasteful chicken feather, involves manual processing including 26 sub processes towards sanitization of raw material.

The project benefits low income artisans in Rajasthan, mainly women, and constitutes a livelihood generation endeavor involving pathbreaking processes and product. Feather pulp is composed of 90% keratin which is soft, warm, durable and sustainable, and above all 100% natural. This cutting edge attempt towards creating value out of waste is supported by Startup Oasis via INVENT in the crucial areas of market, business and financial orientation.

FABRIC MONDE

Fabric Monde (FM), literally, 'The world of fabric', is an aggregating startup that connects the handcrafted fabric produce from the rural cooperatives to urban markets, specifically large, corporate brands.

The company aims at solving the problems of accessibility, quality and supply-chain efficiency of handcrafted fabrics. FM works closely with artisan groups from 20 states and has a product portfolio of 5000+ SKUs of sustainable fabric products. Partnering FM, in its journey to realize its mission to become a total-solutions, one-stop shop for handcrafted fabric for the domestic as well as global market, is Startup Oasis', craft-based enterprise initiative, via its INVENT program. With a view towards optimizing the maker to market process, as well as maximally leveraging the urban market landscape, FM has attempted to minimize the gap between the rural artisan producer cooperatives and premium and semi-premium fashion brands...a case in point is the hand block printed fabric designed and produced by Rajasthan based hand block printer Nutan Udaiwal from Sanganer, for Sachin Tendulkar’s ‘True Blue’ chain of menswear stores.

Even as revenues increased more than six times over, across the ten months of its tenure with Startup Oasis, Jyothi Dakkumalla , an engineer and management graduate and one of the two co-founders, reflected, 'The SO intervention has greatly helped in providing opportunities to connect with various relevant networks, angel investors and crafts ecosystem. It has helped us understand the importance of impact and sensitized us to how to work with craft communities for an all round value creation. SO has encouraged us and supported us through the journey and helped us focus on the business by giving freedom for building and sustaining the enterprise.'

COTTON RACK

Premium, ethical, minimalistic….CottonRack is a ‘homegrown’, indo western womens wear brand, supported by the INVENT program of Startup Oasis. Focusing exclusively on  handspun & handwoven Indian fabrics, CR attempts to make clothing, ‘simple, universal and of heirloom quality’.

Says Rameshwari, an alumni of NIFT who co founded CR with Vinayak, also from  NIFT , ‘We believe in bringing a positive change to the lives of the maker, the wearer and the environment.’ , and about her engagement with SO, ‘They not only facilitated our participation in a cohort of other social impact entrepreneurs but also helped in our understanding of the "startup" side of things like pitch presentations, business model formation etc through our participation and selection for SACCL (Social Accelerator for Crafts, Culinary and Livelihood), Jaipur.’

Business and financial modeling, supply chain management and market linkages besides others are some of the areas in which SO has empowered CR. For more information and to see their product profile, do browse their new website.

KHADIGI

KhaDigi is a handspun, handwoven fabric brand based out of Madhya Pradesh. With their emphasis on cutting edge design and quality orientation, KhaDigi showcases the best of Khadi fabrics and sarees for the contemporary customer.

Founded by the dynamic and ever motivated, Umang Shridhar , a design alumni of NIFT Bhopal, with the support of Startup Oasis under INVENT programme, across a couple of years, Khadigi has upped its game in business planning, design, production efficiencies, marketing, use of technology to optimize processes as evident in the growth of their revenues as well as artisan incomes over this time period. Khadigi today caters to the signature design-oriented, handloom fabric requirement of premium fashion houses and large format retailers in the domestic and international market.

The focus remains on the economic empowerment and skill upgradation of low-income weavers, spinners and associated artisans as well as value creation for each stakeholder of the enterprise.

ABIRA CREATIONS

Abira Creations is an attempt at creating an ecosystem for marginalized, underprivileged women for their growth, learning and economic empowerment, through income generation programs. The 'Abiras', i.e women artisans ( 'Abira', origin Hebrew, for 'brave and 'strong') are encouraged to make handcrafted accessories, including fashion jewelry, bags, tabletop accessories and others. Headed by the super passionate and committed Priyanka Khandelwal, a fashion management graduate from NIFT, Abira markets its product line, which is high on quality and aesthetic via fashion brands including Global Desi in the domestic market and also internationally esp to Australia. 

Based out of Pune and Bangalore, Abira works with more than 50 artisans and support staff in the areas of design, marketing, production and technology to optimize operational processes. Besides inculcating an entrepreneurial spirit in the organization, Startup Oasis & Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship has made available to Abira, financial support, under the INVENT and SACCL program, towards product development, market expansion, skill upgradation, with a view to catalyzing the business and overall growth of the enterprise

. The Abira Group comprises a fashion house and a training center. Product sales fund the core support costs of the training center, which provides life and leadership skills in addition to entrepreneurial ones. The rollout plan for the next couple of years includes bringing more than 1000 women within the fold of its activities. 

Priyanka believes that “Startup Oasis is one incubator that works with you closely to ensure your growth. With the help of consistent mentoring and network, we have been able to connect with a lot of potential customers. The program has been very well designed to support craft startups. We collaborated with many startups in our cohort to promote each others product and get business.”Social Accelerator for Crafts, Culinary and Livelihood (SACCL) proved to be a turning point for this young inspiring woman. Amongst other skills, she learned “the need to improvise the design, fine-tuning the pitch and financial planning. 

Her advice for young entrepreneurs on the verge of starting up? “Start something if you really feel passionate about the problem not just because there is a need.