Our journey as an apparel brand has seen us learn so much about sustainability and the craft ecosystem and how the two overlap. In the early days of sourcing from weaver collectives, we came to unlearn our own assumptions about what sustainability meant in the larger context of climate change and the economics of consumption. Our interest in textiles began with a curiosity about textiles on the loom. But over the last few years of having ventured into printmaking, that is really where our personal interest and business goals have come to converge.
The decision to turn towards printmaking has changed how we view the future of the business. While apparel is our mainstay, we want to explore what we can create for other lifestyle categories. Our interest in upcycling led to the creation of The Upcycled Project - an initiative where we have created an accessories line under Ela India, and employed local seamstresses on a project basis to create a line of sewn products. We explored printmaking on soft handwoven mulmul and handwoven chanderi silk in our Summer ‘23 collection. Both fabrics were originally created on the loom, sourced from Kala Swaraj, a partner we have been working with since 2021.
Over the next decade, it’s where we hope to take this business - as a printmaking studio with an apparel brand extension.
Since 2022, we have started developing our own textiles. What does that mean for an apparel brand like ours? It means that the finished textile has a life journey that is well considered.
In September this year, we completed one year since we opened the doors to our first retail outpost in Kerala's historic and picturesque seaside tourist town - Fort Kochi. Since then we opened another outlet, shut the first one, and welcomed a few hundred customers over the course of our first tourist season, that coincided with the Kochi Biennale's sixth edition. What an exciting time to be in this historic neighbourhood, you would think. And you would be absolutely right:)
We are located on Petercelli Street, one lane away from Fort kochi's busiest tourist spot- Princess Street. Ela India is open daily from 10:30 am to 8pm, come drop in and say hello!
