About us

OUR STORY

Some journeys change what you do. Others change what you feel responsible for.

OUR STORY

Karigarwala began somewhere between design, travel and a growing concern that many of India’s most remarkable skills were becoming less visible with each passing generation.

Across villages, workshops and craft communities, we met people carrying extraordinary knowledge in their hands — skills refined over decades, often passed from one generation to the next. Yet many of these traditions were struggling to find their place in a rapidly changing world.

What stayed with us was that handmade things carry more than beauty. They carry memory, skill, place and time.

Karigarwala was born from a desire to build stronger connections between makers and modern life. To create opportunities for traditional skills to remain relevant. To celebrate craft not as something from the past, but as something that continues to evolve, inspire and belong in the present.

Today, we work across craft communities, design languages, and geographies, but the idea remains the same: to honour the hand, create lasting value, and make room for craft in the way we live today.

Our story begins with hands.

Not with products, business plans or collections, but with people making extraordinary things.

Over the years, we travelled through craft clusters, workshops and artisan communities across India. Again and again, we met makers carrying remarkable knowledge in their hands — skills refined over decades, often passed from one generation to the next. Their work was exceptional. Yet many of these traditions existed far from the places where visibility, value and opportunity are often shaped.

What stayed with us was not only the beauty of the objects being made, but the depth of knowledge behind them. Every technique carries a history. Every material carried a story. Every object reflected years of practice, patience and understanding.

At the same time, the world around us seemed to be moving in the opposite direction — towards speed, sameness and increasingly disposable ways of living.

Craft offered another perspective.

It invited us to slow down. To notice the texture of a material, the judgement behind a process, and the human hand behind an object. It reminded us that some things gain value not because they are new, but because they carry knowledge, character and care.

Karigarwala grew from that realisation.

Our approach is rooted in collaboration.

We work with artisans, workshops and craft communities across India, developing collections that honour the integrity of the process while making sense for the way people live today. That means thinking carefully about form, function, finish and context, choosing materials with intention, and allowing the hand to remain visible.

We are interested in pieces that feel grounded, useful and quietly special — objects with presence, but also purpose. We are drawn to materials that age well, and details that reveal the hand.

Our work sits between tradition and contemporary design, between India and the wider world, between object and story. That space is where Karigarwala lives.