Lakshmi Malhotra,
Founder Resham Dor

I  strongly  believe that India, with its unique creative advantages of craft and heritage, can drive the sustainability movement forward.  

Looking back at my childhood, I now see that I became a handloom enthusiast as I watched my mother wear beautiful handloom sarees from India’s Bengal and Orissa. As I was growing up, Gujarat, my hometown, a magical land with its glorious traditions of art and craft, served as a constant source of inspiration. My favourite pastime was to visit craft fairs , talk to artisans about their weaves, and buy fabrics and get them embellished with stitching from local tailors. Slowly, the artisans became my friends, sharing their struggles — especially the pain of having to weave cheaper fabrics to meet demand. Over the years, I also saw that some of the more beautifully exotic wovens had vanished.


To help this cause, Resham Dor started as an initiative with few friends to create awareness about the rare crafts of India!. We all had full time jobs at the time and unfortunately, this plus other commitments led to my friends having to drop out. Still, I continued to explore various clusters on my own, discovering the dying crafts and the artisans struggling to sustain them. I knew I’d found my calling.  I finally hung up my boots on a 20 year IT corporate career with multinationals globally  to pursue my dream to keep ancient, rich  and rare crafts alive!