At a time most retail giants are looking at strengthening their online presence, an audacious luxury online startup, Jaypore, has established a strong e-presence, retailing luxury handcrafted Indian products.

Since it went online, Jaypore, a beautifully created e-store that retails exquisite handcrafted Indian products is creating a buzz in India’s luxury industry.

It has taken retail out of brick and mortar stores and created a successful online brand that offers the kind of luxury India is known for – rarest handcrafted products that brings the skills and craftsmanship of its craftsmen from the remotest corners of India.

Pashmina Styled Shawl

Each piece – from beautiful kantha stoles to ethereal silks, chic handbags, a variety of home accessories and intricate jewellery, each piece offers a narrative of traditions that can be traced back hundreds of years.

Jaypore offers a platform for young Indian designers who often work with artisans. But it also offers a direct platform to artisans and craftsmen, who can sell online. India’s rich artisanal repository encompasses several techniques of dying, weaving and printing.

Among its extensive treasury is a collection of Jamawar shawls, once woven at the demand of Kashmir, and handcrafted by expert Kashmiri master craftperson families. The shawls were woven from the finest pashmina wool, obtained from the Tibetan plateau and Ladakh, and gifted by Indian royalty to their ministers, nobles and guests. They were cherished as objects of art by the privileged elite who were fortunate to have them. As gifts, they also reached shores of Britain and France, and soon took the fashion world there by storm. The Kashmiri shawl became a cherished possession, one that connected the East to the West.

Pashmina Styled Shawl

The collection put up for sale by the Jaypore team, was designed by Aditi Desai, a well-known connoisseur and collector of Kashmiri Shawls, who has lectured and exhibited at museums and galleries on the technique, history and other socio-economic aspects of Kashmiri shawls. Desai slowly built her collection and traveled from Britain to Scotland, Switzerland to France, Holland, Portugal, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Russia and China, following the journey of the kani jamavar shawl and its different avatars. She bought them from Armenian antique dealers, American and British auctions, collectors, flea markets, and from the Najibabadi shawl vendors who buy themselves buy the shawls from royal houses, restore them and sell them to discerning clients. Family heirlooms to abandoned treasures, these pieces of history were been found, cleaned, restored and reinvented fervidly for eyes and hand that realize it’s beauty and heritage. The collection was a huge hit in the US.

The Jaypore team – a carefully handpicked team that includes innovators in the online space, the founders of burrp.com, and people with vast experience in the field of Indian art and crafts – meticulously curates the collections, each of which tell a story.Jaypore, in a sense, essays the role of a storyteller, even as it hopes to sustain Indian crafts through exotic collections and curations.