The brand and the woman: Crafting a success story in rural India

Come March and 92-year-old Hansiben will be walking the ramp in New Delhi, the Indian capital. It has been an extraordinary 23-year journey to success for this artisan from a little known village in the state of Gujarat, a state known for its intricate handicrafts, and who has a clothing and accessories brand named after her.

The Hansiba brand has reached such heights that international names are scurrying for tie-ups.

It\’s a little difficult to decide which story is more amazing - that Hansiba was 70 when the whole journey started and is still working at innovating the traditional craft or that 15,000 rural women manage the entire supply chain of the company and take care of their families.

\”Today we have tie-ups with international brands in the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Thirty percent of our products are exported,\” said Reema Nanavaty, director of the NGO Self Employed Women\’s Association (SEWA) and the woman largely responsible for starting the Hansiba initiative.

\”Our clothes have also been showcased in the Madrid fashion week and the New York fashion week,\” Nanavaty, who is based in Gujarat\’s main city Ahmedabad, told IANS.

Nanavaty looks back 23 years to remember when she first went to Datranai village and spoke to the women about marketing their craft - known for its embroidery and vibrant colours.

\”They looked at me with suspicion. After all, I was a woman with short hair, they said!\”

But enterprising Hansiba made the difference.

\”It was only Hansibaben, then 70, who believed in me and gave me a sample of her work. We made the payment immediately. Then with some persuasion, 50 women joined us. To see if there indeed was a market for their ethnic product, we had a show in Mumbai and Delhi and it was a big hit,\” she said.

\”The market loved the richness of the ethnic embroidery and the beauty of the handcrafted product. For the women, this was literally like a new lease of life.\”

And the seeds of Hansiba the brand were sown. It was an enterprise that benefited the entire region.

The men in villages like Datranai are mostly dependent on the rain for farming and most of the youngsters migrate to the city for a living. With their handicrafts now bringing in money, the families suddenly had a much-needed safety net.

About 40 percent of the 15,000 women artisans who are attached with Hansiba are the younger lot - daughters and granddaughters of the women who first started out with the brand.

\”We set up the SEWA Trade Facilitation Centre in which the artisans were the main shareholders - 65 percent of the sales went to them directly.

\”In order to appeal to the market, we started innovating designs and held workshops with designers from the National Institute of Design (NID) and the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT),\” said Nanavaty.

Finally, in 2003, Hansiba the brand was launched, named after the woman who first joined the movement.

\”Hansiba was very well received. In Gujarat, there are many rural communities and each has its own pattern of embroidery. Thus we have about 19 kinds of embroideries. We started blending two or three different kinds of embroideries like Rabari and Aahir to create something new,\” said Nanavaty.

As the years rolled by, Hansiba opened stores in Ahmedabad, Delhi and Mumbai and is awaiting one in Bangalore. Like any other brand, it has exclusive collections season-wise, besides bags, stoles and scarves.

\”With time, the talent of these women was recognised not just in India but outside too.\”

Spanish brand Zara is the latest to have a tie-up with Hansiba. In January, two of its designers came to India for a workshop with the women artisans and discussed the designs that will appeal to the international market. The Finnish school of design also had a workshop with the artisans earlier this month.

The challenge amid all of this is to conserve the traditional craft.

\”The risk with all the media attention and the glamour is that the traditional craft may be lost in the scurry of innovations. Not just that. The kind of fibre that is used in the ethnic craft is becoming hard to find. Therefore, we are setting up a museum to conserve some of the last remains of the tradition,\” she said.

\”The museum will also have a collection of tools. For instance, Hansibaben has her own spinning wheel, but her granddaughter does not because the younger generation prefers to buy handlooms from the market instead of weaving them,\” she said.

What makes Hansiba\’s cotton products so exquisite is that each is hand-embroidered and handcrafted. While there are the garments that have been embroidered in one of the 19 kinds that there is - depending on the community the woman artisan belongs to - a blend of two of three of them, fusion of applique with Ahir embroidery, beadwork and other such innovations add new dimensions to the beauty of the craft.

As if to compensate the arid and dry colours of the land, the colours that the women artisans use to embroider their clothes are bright and full of life. Whether it\’s the embroidery - Khambhiro, Mutwa, Jat, Agothi - or the patchwork, it\’s mostly in bright colours like reds, blues and yellows.

While international brands love their designs, slight alterations are nevertheless done to appeal to the bigger market. For instance, a French company that has a tie-up with Hansiba, decided to replace the peacock in one of the designs with a different motif.

In addition to getting feedback to their designs and ideating on what would appeal to the market, the various workshops that the artisans attend also teach them about ethical trading, the importance of organic fibre and latest fashion trend.