During the first Covid-induced lockdown in 2020, Bengaluru-based entrepreneur Sosha Thomas received a call from an embroidery artisan in need of help. “He used to work with me earlier, and had lost his job due to the pandemic. He was expecting his first child and did not want to go to his village in West Bengal emptyhanded. As per COVID-19 norms, we got permission from the officials for him to work at my studio,” says Sosha, who has been exporting hand embroidery designs to fashion studios in the UK and the US — such as Hale Bob, Amanda Kelly — for the past decade. But when several other artisans from Bengal approached her for work, things took a different turn, and soon her apparel brand S24 Parganas — named after the district the artisans hailed from — was born.
“I had never considered starting a domestic brand as I was very content with what I was doing, but we had to create work for them,” says Sosha, who kickstarted the brand in 2020 — along with her husband Praveen Pandaredattil — with a small line of handembroidered tops and silk kurtas, accompanied by two karigars. “We wondered if it would be possible for these brilliant karigars to get work in their own villages, rather than be migrant labour. This worked well as they were happy to work with their families around them. The reaction to our initial collection was phenomenal,” says the 49-year-old entrepreneur, adding that the artisans returned home once lockdown restrictions eased but continued working from there. All the artworks are original, and hand drawn by Sosha and her daughters, that are couriered with the raw materials to the artisans in South 24 Parganas. Once they receive the embroidered panels, the team at Bengaluru, wash, dry-clean and sew them on garments.
