PAULAMI is an eponymous label started by Paulami Saha based out of New Delhi. The brand believes in celebrating the handmade through a contemporary approach. Our focus is in designing distinctive accessories such as neckpieces, earrings, bags and brooches, mainly using fabrics, sprinkled with few other Indian handicrafts that pique our interest from time to time. We love to explore techniques, mediums to bring about finely crafted designs with textiles. We teach and employ women from marginalized sections, who are given the facility to work for us through their homes.
About the Designer:
Paulami Saha, is an accessory designer from Nift Hyderabad. After her studies, she dabbled in many multi design disciplinary firms to finally work in a hard goods company where they produced everything in-house. While her head was set out to work in industrial design, her heart loved the idea of conceptualizing with getting the hands dirty. Hence, this idea emerged with the ethos of using Indian handicrafts but with the neatness and finish inspired by the industrial design sector.
How do we work?we
We are constantly striving to train women from the underprivileged sections to come and work for us, from the comfort of their homes. In doing so, they get to earn a living while taking care of their families. You would be amazed to learn that how so much of creativity is still wasted in the patriarchal belief that women should not leave their homes. Then there are also destitute ones, who are vastly talented but would prefer the service industry such as being domestic helps/maids, over the promise of a monthly salary.
We are trying to find out talent and motivation from these crevices of life and they in turn support us by delivering their trust on us.
However, all of this and more takes time, firstly to build a trust-based relationship, for them to be able to block so much time from their schedules. Thus we are constantly in a struggle to generate quality goods in a time frame and being always on a look out to find newer talent.
It is also our hidden joy to find now, that these ladies are becoming their own self sustainable units where they are teaching others and the families have turned around to support them.
Another avenue for us, is to collaborate with craft persons who are already practicing few age-old handicrafts and relying on their expertise to make something that we could use. A chapter in this approach are women from Santiniketan, who employ exquisite hand embroidery called kantha stitch on certain designs. Then, there are craft persons from Purdilnagar (U.P), who handcraft our glass beads. The list is just growing.
So to sum it up, instead of making what we can just make in-house, we rather believe in creating designs and then finding these parties who partake in creating with us. Interlaced with delays and frustration, when the final product does see the light of the day, the joy is unparalleled.
Kriti Agarwal is our photography partner, with whom we would like to share credits for a lot of photography seen on the website and on our social media handles. You could directly get in touch with her, through her website at Candidmemoirphotography.com
