Who we are?
Bardhanwali is a small business based in South London, producing and stocking handmade products for your home. We have started with block printed cottons, designed here in South London by our founder, Ekta and made in Jaipur, India.
We will be soon stocking handprinted stationery, handmade ceramics. If you haven't guessed, that's us in a few words - colourful, handmade, joyous, authentic!
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Bardhan means gunny bag and our founder, Ekta’s grandfather dealt in gunny bags (mainly made of jute) years ago in India. The family came to be known as Bardhanwala, ie the seller of “bardhan”. Eventually the family moved to other avenues, but the name remained. Ekta’s husband, Raj suggested the name for this enterprise as it holds tremendous sentimental value to her.
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Bardhanwali swears by creativity, by hand-produced, by individuality. We swear by colour, pattern, by making sure the artisan is paid their due. We want our products to make homes vibrant and memorable and introduce wonderful, authentic materials which last forever.
Ekta's Story - In her words
Using my hands and being creative in my daily life is what keeps me motivated and keeps me sane. I have my roots in India and was brought up by a mother who is delightfully creative, hardworking and socially conscious.
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Thanks to my mum, I was always involved in something creative. When we travelled, mum would encourage us to look for what was locally made and what handmade and what that meant for the local industry or for society or for the environment.
As a young adult, pottery took hold and I joined a local artist in Bombay in their studio.
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Somewhere, life took over. A move to the UK led to a career in banking. But being creative never stopped. I took up sewing and thoroughly enjoy it to date!
Raj, my husband, helped me put a pottery studio in the garden and it felt like my dream was finally taking shape. And then, breast cancer struck. As surgery and chemo kicked off, it did not leave me with a lot of energy.
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Funny how low energy and other negatives from an illness will power you to keep going. It led me to revisit my textile design degree, revisit my love for Indian fabrics and printing and back to my love of block print. I initially started sewing my clothes with block print fabrics, collected over the years and started decorated my home with those. However, I found my old collection of wood blocks and started playing around with them.
One thing led to another and here we are! I’m so smitten and this gives me so much joy and purpose. The pottery studio is not just a pottery studio now, it’s turned into a pottery and printing studio.
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Bardhanwali is me sharing my passion with you, bringing colour, bringing authenticity, bringing joy into your lives and home. It is me being able to meet artisans from my home in India and bring their craft to my home and my life in London and your homes too. This means the world to me, it’s not just work, and I hope it shows and I hope you can enjoy my products and treasure them as I do.
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