Pune Inc: Women-led artisan brand puts Indian metal crafts on global pedestal

Style and the City

For a decade, Studio Coppre has been a Pune landmark for aesthetes who similar handcrafted, artisanal products. Operated by women – the laminitis and pb decorator Rashmi Ranade, selling caput Sudakshina Sinha Banerjee, Chhanda Bihari who instrumentality attraction of absorption and finance, and Seemantini Mihir, who leads societal media selling and e-commerce – Studio Coppre is showcasing that it is imaginable to instrumentality an Indian accepted creation and trade signifier similar metallic ware, of the benignant made astatine Pune’s Tambat Alley, to planetary markets.

“We judge that bully plan joined with section handcrafting skills tin truly instrumentality artisans to different level and summation their self-respect,” says Ranade, who studied architecture astatine Sir JJ College of Architecture and merchandise designing from IIT Bombay.

As portion of her enactment and interest, she utilized to sojourn Tambat Alley and prosecute with artisans. It was a fortuitous coming unneurotic of INTACH Pune and The Forbes Marshall Foundation that resulted successful the enactment of the startup.

Today, Studio Coppre products person clients that scope from corporates to individuals successful India and overseas. “If you look astatine the origins of this craft, it is inspired from Maharashtra, which is rustic and earthy and not precise ostentatious. We effort to support the fidelity of that by creating pieces that are precise minimalist. The shapes are elemental and the texture of beating patterns connected the metallic is antithetic from 1 merchandise to another,” says Ranade.

A beverage airy holder that floats successful h2o is inspired by the kolam signifier portion the interplay of lights and copper is astatine the bosom of pods and floaters. The workplace has been grooming artisans successful their aesthetics. The institution works with 35-40 artisans successful Pune and the fig crossed India is galore times that. Though the workplace is beset with the situation each creatives kick about, imitation and plagiarism of their designs, they person deed backmost by refining their products adjacent further to marque each a unsocial portion of heirloom.

Ethical Practices

Chhanda Bihari, a erstwhile CEO and the lone 1 successful Studio Coppre who understands numbers, says that they are making a year-on-year growth, with the losses of demonetisation and Covid astir balanced by the surge successful demand.

“Studio Coppre is simply a subordinate of Nest Artisan Guild, an planetary assemblage of much than 400 artisan businesses that practise divers craftsmanship crossed much than 70 nations. In keeping with the Nest standards, we signifier just and ethical enactment policies, which mean that our artisans don’t get paid for value of the merchandise arsenic is the wide signifier but for their skill. We bash a clip and question survey and the effect is that the wages for our artisans are higher than what mostly exists successful India,” says Bihari.

While copper remains the company’s mainstay, they person an arsenic wide scope successful brass and bronze. “We bash immoderate enactment with bamboo and solid arsenic well,” says Ranade.

“Indian textiles are precise well-known crossed the world. Even erstwhile the British came, they focussed connected the textiles of Bengal and different places. In the past 10 years, we person tried to instrumentality metallic to the world,” she adds.