Fair Trade Statement

 

 

The products I sell are predominantly handmade in India, where I have worked for 28 years, designing clothes and textiles, alongside local craftspeople. My main area of interest lies in the textile embroidery, block printing, and natural dying of the region. Many of the products sold by Bazaar are designed by me – nearly all are commissioned.   I know and pay personally the weavers, printers, dyers and tailors – the ladies who embroider, make fringes and do beading. From the men in the back streets of the city who recycle metal and make sequins, to the women in their desert mud homes who stitch, it has been my life’s passion to seek them out. As a result, Bazaar has unique and far-reaching trading links with many marginalised families.

 

The people that work making Bazaar’s products are paid on time, and often materials are bought or paid for by me in advance. We work together in congenial working spaces – often these are family homes and small workshops. Working with as many recycled and surplus materials as possible, Bazaar has a big range of textile products, the making of which supports many disadvantaged families. We give to local schools and freely share product development and designs with our suppliers. We work directly, as much as possible, and go always with our feeling in business. Fair Trade in craft has many grey areas, which I will happily and openly discuss both here and in India.

 

I love India and its crafts people. Their colourful textile crafts are amazing.   I do my best to bring beautiful things from there, to here, in as fair a way as I see possible.

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By Joanna Hall