Our Pukka Place- Desirables

I finally have a fully completed sample for our stitching project.
have a look at thge pictures please, any comments on design and suggestions for variations and suggetions for selling or contacts who might like to buy some ....you know! any leads or suggestions greatly appreciated.
I have started with a few local ladies, who are slowly getting their first pieces done, it had been Diwali, they help their husband's work and keep their house so spotlessly clean ...it is all time consuming and the stitching is new so they are not exactly jumping yet.
As I have said I have been designing clothes and getting them made by a local small business- 1 boss who can copy anything you show him or draw for him and 4 stitching guys in a room that can barely accomodate the sewing machine tables!
It is a small business - he pays fair wages to his workers and fusses over them- I think it is Fair Trade even though it has no paperwork.


A long story...anyway showing him what I had made [oh yes! because I was going to ask him to do the machine stitching component of the pillows] he suggested going o some of the outlying villages...there the ladies work on the farm and have more time to take in stitching work. With our drought there is not a lot of work for them and they could really use the income.
He is happy to introduce us to the ladies and let us deal directly [not ask for a middle man percentage- good man as that is accepted practice. We want the ladies to get a good deal for their work, if we deal directly we can be sure of that]

This is just a beginning- I want to use the brightness of re-cycled silk sari and think the black off sets it nicely. Also it is slow job trying to source other fabrics- few fabric shops around, all the wholesalers are in Delhi and that is a huge rabbit warn to search...you need to leave a string line to find your way out!! A trail of bread would not work some animal would eat it!
A line in Khahdi handloom silk and cotton would aslo be a possibility, the colours would be more in the neutral range [price would be higher because Khadhi is dearer than re-cycled sari]

My mind is bursting....I am off on tour tomorrow but can leave a pile of blanks for the first pieces to be done in the village [poor Praveen will have to handle that and he is so shy with non family memeber Indian ladies. That is Indian culture you don't talk to ladies you are not related to. On tours he is quiet when he meets our guests but soon warms up and is fine]

I am going to sell them as an extension of the ideals we base our hotel on, making a place a home. We will have a glass cabinet in the reception and the rest I will sell overseas
.

Think the business name will be Our Pukka Place- DESIRABLES.

1. they are desireable in themselves [this is me hoping!]

2. production is centred on an ethically desireable philosophy- we want to create work locally and I need to support myself living here to do that.

3. it is your desire nature, your emotions that will make you want these items they are not necessities, the want comes for a desire to surround ourselves with beauty.

I really like the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement- John Ruskin who laid an influence for them with his writing on art, the Bloomsbury set [some of their houses are fabulous] and Bauhaus associates [many of them are amongst my favourite painters- blending a spiritual twist into their thinking and working and use of colour.

Practical Beauty where things you use everyday also are well designed and well made, things you would keep for ever not throw away for next season.

sounds OK?

What do you think of the name? I like the sounds of it when I say it- feels good in the mouth when I say it, to my eye doesn't look the easiest when I write it...perhaps a font change will help that.

Desirables
DesirablesDesirables… hmmm?