Welcome to our 100% cotton handloom online store!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 

Kara brings to you exclusively designed and woven home furnishing fabrics and bath items. We feature these two types of fabrics:

1) Soft, gossamer thin ecru cotton with ornamental threads woven into it.
2) Finely woven cotton towel material called thorthu, traditionally used as an ayurvedic body-wipe fabric.

Kara is a creative venture with a social cause, born out of the felt need to give the Kerala handloom industry a much-needed impetus.We are a group of women who work with independent teams of weavers across the state and small sets of rural tailors to create handmade home furnishings of the highest finish and quality.
This first-of-its-kind attempt in Kerala hopes to bridge the gap between this traditional weaving art form and a contemporary lifestyle.

Why handloom?
Handloom’s unique quality is that of the yarn which is of pure cotton variety suitable only for slow speed spinning and weaving process. This preserves the lustre, colour-holding capacity, absorbency, softness and durability of cotton products. It was this finesse and feel that made Indian cotton fabric so famous in earlier times.

So yes, we at Kara are crazy about these breezy, soft, handmade fabrics; sharing it with others is what we do best!
Happy shopping!

 
     

 

 

 
 

Team:
• Indu Menon (Social Scientist, Anthropologist, co-author of Women Weavers , 1983)
• B. Sreedevi (an Expert on Kerala handloom fabric and technique)
• Suryakala Satish (Packaging and product expert)
&
• Revathy Menon (Noted Indian Film Actor/Director/Social Activist)

Our consultants:
• Lakshmi Menon (Featured Gallery Artist, Interior/Product designer, USA)
• Chitra Gopalakrishnan (Graphic Designer, MFA ESAG France, MFA Cranbrook Academy of Art, USA)

Fabrication:
Our custom-designed fabrics are woven at different Government Weaving Co-Operative Units across Kerala. We get some of our products stitched by Graduates of the Assisi Mount School for the Speech and Hearing Impaired at Neerpara, Kerala. All other stitching is done by local tailors.

For queries, please contact us at info@karaweaves.com

 
     

 

Some pictures of the weaving, team and favourite hangouts:

 


Pre-Weaving drying of the yarn

Pre-loom organization of threads

One of our weavers at her loom

Team member Revathy with one of our weavers at her loom

Team: Indu, SreeDevi, Revathy, Suryakala (left to right)

Indu's House: if you trek till here, you get a Friends' Price bargain of our stuff!


Updates (watch this space for more info on shows and events!):

• We're featured on design*sponge, thanks Grace!! yay!
• We are featured on Rang Décor, thank you so much Archana!!! :)
• Thanks for writing about us on
your blog Katy!
Infinite thanks to LuckyMag for featuring us on their list of Style Steals
• We would like to thank Pavitra at Masala Chai for featuring us!
• Thank you
Travelicious for the super sweet write-up & for shopping with us!

Thank you shopppers, for the overwhelming response!! We're thrilled to say we have orders from across the United States, Brazil, Australia, Canada, Slovakia, Hong Kong and China so far :)

• Click here to see the custom-designed Thank You cards sent out with each shipment. Shop with us to recieve your custom-drawn card!



Our Favourite Clicks

Where Does Chitra Live?

design*sponge

Play Clan

Masala Chai Online

Rang Décor

Home Bug

PostSecret

i--feel--random

Illum Design

Absolutely Beautiful Things

PingMag

BoingBoing

Print & Pattern

Cranbrook Academy of Art

On My Desk

Farmgirl Fare

Lily and Scooter

Oh Joy!

Travelicious

DhalRoti


 
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