Designed to Inspire
Culture, travel and craft marry to inspire the design DNA of one of the first made-in-India international leather goods brand
Travel for me, at its purest, means being transported in space and time to a different world. My earliest travel memories are with my parents, sitting on my father’s lap in a train listening to stories of India, its forests; its dacoits, heroes and villains! Later when I moved to the United States as a student at 16, my summer travels took me on hitchhiking and public buses on the “hippie trail” from Europe to Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan to reach India in the cheapest and most adventurous way. One of my favourite places to travel to has always been Italy, which inspired me a great deal in my early days with its entrenched culture of handcrafted leather. It’s great to hang out in a small Italian town, eating and drinking myself to the fullest, but I actually don’t remember these travels at all after they are over. What I do remember is spending two months in Sardinia on a beach in a small tent, meeting and sharing stories with the local miners, being fed maggots and cheese(yum!) by their wives. Of course, Africa continues to inspire me with its otherworldly atmosphere, culture and art. I have been through the Masai land four times; always loved the synergy between the tall handsome Masai, a land full of lions and wildlife, and colours of their artwork that stands in stark contrast to the harsh gold landscape. They inspired our Maasai collection—the colors, the rough natural leathers we developed to get the feel of their land, the brass work that was inspired from their spears.