Where: Based in Rajpur, India, at the foot of the Himalayas. They also have workers in Calcutta and Dehradun. Established: 2011 Founder: Melody Murray (Mel) Number of Workers: 200 (as of 2015) Materials: Cotton, sustainably-sourced remnant leather, vegan leather Values: Fair Trade, empowering women, handmade, recycling, slow fashion Certifications: Fair Trade Certified by the Fair Trade Federation
"Mel's vision is to create pockets of manufacturing in India and Southeast Asia that are locally led, putting work back into the hands of the makers."
Meet the Makers
Bimla, Stitcher
This is Bimla, one of Joyn Bags' longest serving stitchers. Although quiet, Bimla is intelligent, and a hard worker. She has five children - three sons and two beautiful daughters. Her two daughters are still going to school and will complete schooling soon. She works hard for her family and dreams for her children to become successful in life. She also wants to someday build a house for her family.
Tsering Yangdon, Fabric Cutter
This is Tsering Yangdon. She works in Joyn’s procurement, quality control and cutting departments. Yangdon loves that she gets the opportunity to learn more than one skill at work. She enjoys dancing, giving people hugs and making them happy and she even dreams of owning a business someday!
Malti
Malti is a fighter. She has raised her younger siblings and has grown up quickly. She persevered through life’s challenges and is strong, beautiful, bold, and a little ornery. She loves to dance. Before working with JOYN, she was studying and she is so happy that she can continue to study while working. She has a dream to see all her siblings successful and settled well in life. Malti’s dream is to build a beautiful house for her family.
About the Materials & Processes
Joyn sources hand-picked cotton from local farmers in Calcutta. The cotton is hand-spun by artisans in Dehradun, and then hand-woven in Calcutta and Dehradun. Once the cotton has been woven into fabric, it is cut to size at the workshop in Rajpur.
All of Joyn's colourful prints are hand-block printed by artisans in Rajpur. Block printing is a traditional technique using hand-carved wooden print blocks that are immersed in paint then stamped onto the fabric. The process must be repeated for each colour in the design. Finally, touch-ups are added using a paint brush. When the paint has dried, the fabric is ready to be stitched into a bag.
Joyn sources their leather from a family-owned business in Delhi that gathers remnant leather from fast fashion companies, recycling what would have ended up in landfill. Some of their bags have been purposefully designed to incorporate leather off-cuts from the Joyn workshop, ensuring very little is wasted.
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You can support these makers by purchasing Joyn Bagshere.
