Start. Pause. Resume.
- 15 hours ago
- 2 min read
~On recalibration, the business of making, and why the pause is not the end of the story.~
Recalibration is such an important part of any founder's journey, and a never-ending one.
Start
I remember my early years in the industry. Fast-paced. Interning with multiple labels, launching my eponymous label in 2022, showing in Italy, working with production houses. It felt like I was following the typical independent designer dream journey, and for a while, it felt exactly like that. A dream.
But by 2024, something changed. It felt like I had nothing more to say.
Pause
As a self-funded brand, the challenges you face leave you working in more than one direction at once. You are introduced to a world of business that design school never prepared you for. The business side of things makes you see everything differently. The oversaturation of fashion labels makes you question whether the world needs more new clothing at all.
You find yourself in a dilemma between your creative world and the business world, and the distance between the two can feel impossible to close.
"As a creative, I have always believed in producing something that is needed but also something like a souvenir, a keepsake. Something timeless, with meaning and purpose behind it."
Something rooted in tradition. In the stories of the people who made it. And most of the time, truly slow and sustainable ideas are not what the business world considers ideal.
That tension is real, and it is exhausting.
Resume
The recalibration made me return to the only question that actually mattered, what do I want to make, for whom, and why?
The answer was something that was a part of India. Made with love by artisans.
Something unique that newer and older generations alike could hold onto a truly slow, truly sustainable object, not just for the PR and the marketing. Something that carried the hand of the karigar in every thread.
That answer became Kari-garan.
The pause is not the problem.
It is part of the process.
To every independent designer and founder reading this , I wish someone had told me in 2024 that a pause is not the end of your journey. It is an opportunity to sit, recalibrate, learn the parts of the business world you were never taught, and come back much stronger than before.
Start. Pause. Resume.
And then start again.
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