Design 21: Social Design Network

Kara is a creative venture with a social cause, born out of the felt need to give the Kerala handloom industry a much-needed impetus.We are a group of women who work with independent teams of weavers across the state and small sets of rural tailors to create handmade home furnishings of the highest finish and quality. This first-of-its-kind attempt in Kerala hopes to bridge the gap between this traditional weaving art form and a contemporary lifestyle.

Kara brings to you exclusively designed and woven home furnishing fabrics and bath items. We feature these two types of fabrics:

1) Soft, gossamer thin ecru cotton with ornamental threads woven into it. 2) Finely woven cotton towel material called thorthu, traditionally used as an ayurvedic body-wipe fabric.

Why handloom? Handloom’s unique quality is that of the yarn which is of pure cotton variety suitable only for slow speed spinning and weaving process. This preserves the lustre, colour-holding capacity, absorbency, softness and durability of cotton products. It was this finesse and feel that made Indian cotton fabric so famous in earlier times. So yes, we at Kara are crazy about these breezy, soft, handmade fabrics; sharing it with others is what we do best!