The Daughters of Gaea brand ambition is to have a diverse portfolio of collections, crafted from a variety of techniques made by artisan groups from around the world, celebrating and upholding community and preserving handcraft traditions.
This naturally meant that we couldn’t leave out a particular group of countries in the search for beautiful handcrafting. For instance, there are weaving groups in Botswana, incredible embroidery groups in Mexico, sculpting groups in Guatemala and many more amazing techniques found by skilled artisans across the continents. With the Daughters of Gaea being to empower women all over the world with handcraft employment, we knew that women in every country could benefit from our model.
There are so many different techniques and heritage cultures in the handcraft industry that come from all over the world. NEST, our charity partner who works with artisan collectives around the world, recognises this, which is why they also choose to work groups in almost every country. And that is why we chose to work with Nest to find our artisan partners!
HOW DID THE PARTNERSHIP WITH NEST BEGIN?
Felicity, founder, heard about NEST by chance while browsing the internet and exploring the idea of an ethical homeware brand. It was serendipitous that it was exactly what she was looking for.
They are very well established and amazing at what they do, and when Felicity had a call with them, she could tell how passionate they were about doing good. It felt like it was fundamental for the business’s success to have the ethical compliance of the artisans that we worked with overseen by such an experienced group. This way we could be sure we had an extra layer of protection to work towards a truly successful social impact.
INTRODUCING OUR FIRST COLLABORATION WITH THARANGINI STUDIOS
Our first collection of sustainable homeware was made in collaboration with Tharangini Studios, a heritage woman-owned handcrafting studio in Bangalore. Aside from producing beautiful, authentic handcrafted items, their vision and mission match our own. Tharangini is a female led business based in Bangalore, India, that puts tradition of ancient hand craft, sustainability and workers rights at the forefront of their ethos. What was most compelling to us was the pride and passion each handworker had in their craft.
Yashoda at Tharangini told us, “I’ve been working here for 10 years and had no prior training. I started learning colour mixing from Bhanu, a senior colour mixer and it took me a year to learn everything. I learned a lot from watching others and I love to mix light colours. Dark colours are easy to mix, but light colours are difficult to perfect. You have to persevere to get it done.”
THE ART OF MIXING COLOURS IN THE TRADITIONAL WAY
Developing a strong understanding of how the process worked was part of our journey as a brand, and knowing we were in safe hands, with a studio that nurtured talent was essential. We wanted to share some of the insights from our talented artisans.
Kalaiarasi, who had only been working at the studio for 5 months when we caught up with her said, “initially I had no idea about colour mixing but now I understand the concept of it. Slowly my interest grew as I understood that first there’s colour mixing, then we take it to get the sample printed, then check it’s correct, then if the sampling colour matches, we send it to print. Everyone here is friendly and colour mixing is very interesting. There are challenges, but my two seniors here make it less difficult.”
Bhanu, a highly experienced handworker with 30 years of experience at Tharangini added, “my main job is colour mixing and matching. Every customer has their preference on light colours and dark colours depending on their requirement and I mix colours according to that. Daily, we mix 10-20 colours based on the instructions from the office, then we match to make sure the shade is correct.”
The care and detail of the job is something that reflects our design process, and Bhanu continued, “sometimes it can take up to a day to perfect the shade, sometimes the background colour of the material may be dark, and the paint shade is light and it’s difficult to match, but even if it takes two days, I put all my effort into matching the colours. Then the customer is also satisfied and happy. There is no tension about the job because the managers cooperate with us.”
Knowing how much care and love our workers put into every detail of the process, makes us so happy presenting products that feel so special.
Read more about Daughters of Gaea’s vision, or explore the beautiful sustainable homeware and shop for handcrafted gifts in our India collection, printed by Tharangini Studios.
This naturally meant that we couldn’t leave out a particular group of countries in the search for beautiful handcrafting. For instance, there are weaving groups in Botswana, incredible embroidery groups in Mexico, sculpting groups in Guatemala and many more amazing techniques found by skilled artisans across the continents. With the Daughters of Gaea being to empower women all over the world with handcraft employment, we knew that women in every country could benefit from our model.
There are so many different techniques and heritage cultures in the handcraft industry that come from all over the world. NEST, our charity partner who works with artisan collectives around the world, recognises this, which is why they also choose to work groups in almost every country. And that is why we chose to work with Nest to find our artisan partners!
HOW DID THE PARTNERSHIP WITH NEST BEGIN?
Felicity, founder, heard about NEST by chance while browsing the internet and exploring the idea of an ethical homeware brand. It was serendipitous that it was exactly what she was looking for.
They are very well established and amazing at what they do, and when Felicity had a call with them, she could tell how passionate they were about doing good. It felt like it was fundamental for the business’s success to have the ethical compliance of the artisans that we worked with overseen by such an experienced group. This way we could be sure we had an extra layer of protection to work towards a truly successful social impact.
INTRODUCING OUR FIRST COLLABORATION WITH THARANGINI STUDIOS
Our first collection of sustainable homeware was made in collaboration with Tharangini Studios, a heritage woman-owned handcrafting studio in Bangalore. Aside from producing beautiful, authentic handcrafted items, their vision and mission match our own. Tharangini is a female led business based in Bangalore, India, that puts tradition of ancient hand craft, sustainability and workers rights at the forefront of their ethos. What was most compelling to us was the pride and passion each handworker had in their craft.
Yashoda at Tharangini told us, “I’ve been working here for 10 years and had no prior training. I started learning colour mixing from Bhanu, a senior colour mixer and it took me a year to learn everything. I learned a lot from watching others and I love to mix light colours. Dark colours are easy to mix, but light colours are difficult to perfect. You have to persevere to get it done.”
THE ART OF MIXING COLOURS IN THE TRADITIONAL WAY
Developing a strong understanding of how the process worked was part of our journey as a brand, and knowing we were in safe hands, with a studio that nurtured talent was essential. We wanted to share some of the insights from our talented artisans.
Kalaiarasi, who had only been working at the studio for 5 months when we caught up with her said, “initially I had no idea about colour mixing but now I understand the concept of it. Slowly my interest grew as I understood that first there’s colour mixing, then we take it to get the sample printed, then check it’s correct, then if the sampling colour matches, we send it to print. Everyone here is friendly and colour mixing is very interesting. There are challenges, but my two seniors here make it less difficult.”
Bhanu, a highly experienced handworker with 30 years of experience at Tharangini added, “my main job is colour mixing and matching. Every customer has their preference on light colours and dark colours depending on their requirement and I mix colours according to that. Daily, we mix 10-20 colours based on the instructions from the office, then we match to make sure the shade is correct.”
The care and detail of the job is something that reflects our design process, and Bhanu continued, “sometimes it can take up to a day to perfect the shade, sometimes the background colour of the material may be dark, and the paint shade is light and it’s difficult to match, but even if it takes two days, I put all my effort into matching the colours. Then the customer is also satisfied and happy. There is no tension about the job because the managers cooperate with us.”
Knowing how much care and love our workers put into every detail of the process, makes us so happy presenting products that feel so special.
Read more about Daughters of Gaea’s vision, or explore the beautiful sustainable homeware and shop for handcrafted gifts in our India collection, printed by Tharangini Studios.
