It is with joy that I write today what is my first newsletter and that I wish you a happy new year 2025!
I completely "missed" my end of 2024 for India Sampatti and not only that! Personal difficulties have somewhat hindered my project, the kind we all know and which are sometimes difficult to live with. The kind that drain energy and make it impossible to do what is necessary!
So this newsletter, announced many times, here it is :-)
I am therefore taking advantage of this start of the year and a renewed energy to look back on these last months of 2024 and tell you a little about the misadventures of India Sampatti.
In September 2024, I went to India for three weeks to meet artisans and to have the products for my first collection made: enthusiasm was at its peak and I really appreciated the intensity of these three weeks in the company of Satnam, an Indian driver whom I had met in Brittany at his friend Elisabeth's house in July.
Together we traveled 3000 km: from Delhi (where he came to pick me up when I got off the plane), to Bhuj in Gujarat, passing through Bagru, Pushkar, Jodhpur, Patan, Udaipur and Jaipur where we stayed the longest on the way there and back to work with two small artisan workshops to make the clothes and jewelry for the collection.
On the road to discover artisans, it was really a daily adventure because the contacts that I had been able to glean during the preparation of the trip often turned out to be disappointing: this was the case in particular with a small fashion studio whose values displayed corresponded well to mine (making women work in the villages to give them autonomy, traditional crafts, sense of ethics, etc.). But once there, this long-awaited meeting turned out to be a complete flop and we lost 2 days being led up the garden path... these things happen and it was ultimately a good experience (especially in hindsight, because at the time I didn't take it very well and I was sick!)
So we had to find an alternative and let the magic of India work and improvise on site to find traditional artisans who are in the villages (and not on the internet!)
This is how we met some wonderful weavers and artisan dyers whose products are now part of the India Sampatti collection (I talked about it on the boutique's blog)
Back in France at the end of September, we had to wait for the pieces of the collection to be ready, then for the merchandise to be delivered... with a delay due to the period: the packages of merchandise for Christmas piled up and there were traffic jams, I didn't know where my packages were and I had to make numerous video calls with the Indians to succeed in unblocking the situation.
At the same time there was all the work on the new site with a graphic designer who accompanied me for the branding, it was necessary to find a model, learn how to take the photos (and the post-production, that is to say the retouching), then put it online on the site. It's a lot of work, I invested all the energy I could but during this time I had none to communicate on the networks and promote the new collection ...
I hope today that this newsletter will make you want to discover it and that it will bring you as much joy as I had in creating it: beautiful materials, unique pieces, blockprint creations, jewelry ... all from traditional Indian craftsmanship.
That's all for today! Feel free to give me your feedback on this newsletter by email.
I'm taking this opportunity to offer you a 20% discount on the new collection (just for you) and I'll see you soon :-)
Chrystelle