Made in Tharparkar

Our handwork is made by artisan women organised by Thar Textiles, a women-founded, women-led enterprise based in Mithi, the district town. Thar Textiles was founded by three women of Tharparkar and is led by Ms Lachhmi. It works with home-based women artisans across villages in the district, running craft outlets in Mithi and Nagarparkar.

Shanti designs from Birmingham. The designs travel to Mithi. The artisans interpret, embroider and construct them — and they change things, because they know these forms better than any drawing does. The finished garments travel back to Stratford Road.

It is a long-standing partnership, and it is how we intend to keep working.

Our handwork is made with Thar Textiles, Mithi, Tharparkar.

There is no grid electricity in the villages where our embroidery is worked. There is no machinery and no heat process. The stitching is done by hand, in daylight, and cloth dries in the sun.

That is not a marketing claim. It is simply how the work is done — and it means that once the cotton has arrived, a piece of Thari handwork costs almost nothing in carbon to make. In a clothing industry that is one of the world's heaviest polluters, the Thar Desert has been making textiles the low-carbon way for centuries, because there was never another way.

The women who make our handwork are paid for their work. They are craftswomen with a skill that took a lifetime to learn and generations to develop. We buy from them because the work is good.