Our Story
The All India Company (TAIC) is a social enterprise focused on building sustainable artisan communities that generate non-farm employment in remote, rural parts of India, and preserve a crucial cultural marker.
TAIC's vision is to alleviate poverty with dignified work for all.
To get there, it has made it its mission to sustain handloom weaving as a reliable non-farm occupation through design intervention, marketing agency, and profit reinvested into weaving.
TAIC seeks out highly-skilled artisans and co-creates urban functional goods with them. While it brings urban tastes, preferences and needs to the table, its artisan partners reach deep into their toolkit of experience, traditional knowledge and time-tested skills to collaboratively handcraft high quality, durable goods for eclectic homes around the world.
The legendary craftsmanship and simplicity of rural India is The All India Company's undying source of inspiration. Its products and pricing, therefore, are based on a bottoms-up approach; they are led by crafts and craftspeople.
Since this is a non-dividend, non-wealth accumulating business, and the supply chain is short, you get high quality products at a reasonable price with the knowledge that 100% of the profit is reinvested into handloom weaving.
In the absence of weaving as a reliable source of income, handloom weavers are compelled to migrate to sub-urban and urban areas where they work as unskilled labour unprotected by a minimum wage. The highly skilled hands of artisans end up with minimally skilled jobs such as pulling rickshaws, working at construction sites, and sweeping the streets. Weavers that were once the engine of thriving villages are relegated to urban slums living hand-to-mouth in tents on the roadside.
If we lose the weaver, we lose the hope of living in a socially and an environmentally sustainable way. A busy weaver keeps an array of artisans busy - spinners, dyers, tool makers, printers, tailors...the list is long. Traditionally, weavers are in tune with the local environment. The local dyer that dyes the yarn or fabric for the weaver typically uses locally available natural materials.The local farmer or shephard provides the fiber. Therefore, the cloth woven by the weaver varies with season.
Most interestingly, the dexterity of handloom weavers enable them to weave with very short fiber, allowing them to recycle short-staple fibers of organic cotton and recycled fibers - an area where machines fail.
Your purchase from this e-store not only keeps you connected to the makers of your premium quality product, but it also generates a sustainable non-farm income to rural weavers.
You are a hero for supporting this business, even if you just talk about it.
Our principles
TAIC is driven by its unwavering commitment to positively impact people and the planet.
People
Skill development, knowledge and employment go a long way in sustaining families in remote parts of the world. Here is TAIC's commitment to improving people's lives:
Planet
What is good for the hive, is good for the bees. Nobody knows this better than experienced artisans (and, of course, beekeepers!). Here is TAIC's commitment to preserving the planet:
No endangered materials: only use natural materials found abundantly, or are a byproduct/waste, or can be easily replenished in the ecosystem
The All India Company takes great pride in bringing you handcrafted goods for your home that improve our world, one craft at a time.
