Mission
Our mission at Mud Lotus is to create sustainable clothing by working with small artisans in India and Nepal. Mud Lotus inspiration came from a long love affair with India's beauty and culture and the richness of artisan work and textiles. No other land offers such a plethora of exquisite fabrics, hand-dyed, block-printed cottons, embroidered silks for queens, kings, maharanis & maharajas. Sustainable means clothing will be made in small quantity by artisans who work hard in challenging economies. Less is more as one appreciates core values of skills and traditions as opposed to fast industries that create a lot of abuse, waste and pollution: from child labor to the use of synthetic fabrics that cannot recycle.
My Story
My story began decades ago traveling around India inspired by spirituality in daily life and the devotion and skill of artisans in their work. I was sponsoring a Tibetan refugee, who became my God-daughter, and everything really started one day after they gifted me a beautiful, soft yak-blend hand-loomed blanket. I brought them back to sell in the west as the "Tibet Blanket Project" to help send a little extra cash to her refugee family in India.
Various trips later, wanting to step away from a successful chef career, I worked with a tailor in Rajhastan and made a few lovely pieces of linen & block-printed clothing. After studying deeper into the process of mud cloth and block printing I became enthralled. These ancient arts of Bagru and Kaladera cotton & bamboo textile printing are skillfully created in many parts of Rajhastan and loved around the world. From the mud the lotus blooms. I see a parallel in the labor intensive process of mud cloth printing, which gives birth the to unique plant-based indigo dyed clothing. Indigo plant dying process goes back as early as the 1300's in China. It was brought west via the Silk Route and is one of the oldest plant-based dyes in the world. The blue color, given by the various indigo plant species is of an incomparable hue that reminds us of both heaven and earth mixed together.
Creating Change
Creation creates change. To BE the change we want to see, we can reflect on the past which holds keys to the future. A modern world embraces age-old traditions of art and beauty. Fast-paced fashion and fast-paced eating create excess and imbalance in the world. Our human quest is to seek balance in all aspects of life. There is a yoga in every endeavor, in every cell of our being. It is called divinity. That presence is reflected in a piece of art, in architecture, in lovers union, and in a skillfully woven fabric. It is the fiber of our lives. I share these offerings with deep gratitude to all the masters of crafts that create so we also can be part of this beautiful process.