Favorite Home Grown Brands

 Innovative Handmade Dreams 

The rise of Homegrown Brands vis a vis global brands is the new market trend, due to excellent customization, remarkable quality and a passionate brand story. Having a centrally unique selling proposition, and offering one of its kind products and services with a personal touch, is what helps homegrown brand set themselves apart from competition and carve an identity of their own.

We bring you a TOS special curation of Ahmedabad’s most special homegrown brands that we immediately fell in love with. We hope you love them too!!

The Hippie Vibes:

Founded by erstwhile Chartered Accountant Kanisha who quit her profession to start an art and travel inspired enterprise, The Hippie Vibes hinges on ‘magic’, via sacred handcrafted dream catchers and all things macrame, including plant hangers, car hangers, earrings and bag charms. The core values of this brand are curiosity, passion, and healing the world through art. Further, what sets them apart is their use of only natural and vegan materials sourced from ethical traders and their employment of underprivileged women to create handmade, one of a kind dream catchers and gypsy jewellery that ships worldwide.

The market for this brand ranges from exhibiting in flea markets to selling from Instagram, to having dream catchers and other Bohemian Macrame decor being used for weddings and brunches alike, to finally also organizing workshops for children and adults. Ultimately, the idea is to make people in and out of Ahmedabad aware about dream catchers, beyond them being beautiful and eye-catching to them being a historical and spiritual totem and hence, perfect as a gift.

Chhapak:

Modern products with cultural essence- this is the concept behind ‘Chhapak’. NID alumnus Vikas Gupta started this initiative in 2016 to reinvent how we look at traditional Indian handicrafts, and to sketch out his dream designs which were functional as well as authentically Indian, all while employing craftsmen and artisans. They easily have the most innovative, trademark pieces which you wouldn’t find anywhere else, ranging from soft toys to office utility products, and it’s all so fun and adaptive that you can’t take your eyes away, no matter which age group you belong to!

Chhapak is different, because the artisans are as important here as the art is, the handicraft items each have utility and innovation, and it has twin roots in two culturally rich cities- Ahmedabad and Benaras. It’s truly an amazing homegrown brand for the city, since Ahmedabad has, and loves its creative and heritage exhibition spaces.

Nira’s Ceramics:

‘Unique, handcrafted tableware’ is the chief offering of this 30 year old family run brand, anchored by three generations of women entrepreneurs!

Nira’s Cermics started from a desire to create a sustainable livelihood for city-based potters, by experimenting with different raw materials and providing finished products that hold and nourish a sense of pride in homes, inspired by travel and nature. They profess the values of happiness, dignity and exploration, through their colours, designs as well as finishing, all of which prompt their Ahmedabadi target audience to express their sense of aesthetics by either passing these creations across three decades, or buying them for a new home.

Kitsch by Nik:

As its name suggests, ‘Kitsch by Nik’ is a quirky, fun, yet elegant brand offering upcycled jewellery using textiles, wood, ceramic and copper. Having started over five years ago with toe anklets, something unheard of at the time, Kitsch is unique because it is truly inspired by a vision of all that is beautiful and carries potential- be that a beautiful skyline, or waste that can be upcycled, or anything that is vintage or carries an essence of heritage architecture.

Founded by Nirjari Shah, this brand stands out to us because it has an amazing identity and personality of its own, which many art lovers in Ahmedabad and across the country resonate with.