In the age of machines and the internet our mundane heart craves for handcrafted merchandise as their design and craftwork reveals the beauty of our culture and heritage. Understanding the true classification of beauty in the cultural traditions of our country and to make it a wellknown phenomenon of Indian households, Deepali Tharkude is renovating the concept of handcraftsmanship through her unique innovation ‘The Handicraft Studio’. With a broad range of products including textiles, home décor, home improvement accessories and gifts which are conventionally traditional, and some with a twist of contemporary, The Handicraft Studio is gradually emerging as a new identity of the Indian Handicraft sector under the able guidance of Deepali Tharkude.

A new-age woman entrepreneur, Deepali Tharkude has always been a successful corporate professional throughout her career who was intrepid enough to take a break and pursue her dream of starting an e-commerce portal to vendor handcrafted products, textiles and home ware. Women Entrepreneur India engages in an exclusive interaction with Deepali Tharkude to further explore her journey as a successful woman entrepreneur in the arts, crafts, and design sector.

1. Along With Your Educational And Professional Background, Tell Us About Your Entrepreneurial Journey.

After competing my Masters in Computer ManagementI worked in eLearning Design and Development for 15 years. I was heading a team of eLearning professionals for about 5 years in my last job and my overall experience in the corporate world, interacting with large teams and international clients has helped me a lot in business. I decided to take a break from work as I wanted to spend some time with my daughter. Starting a business was something that I had never really thought I would do. I neither have an education in business nor do I come from a business family. Being passionate about the various types of arts and crafts in India and with my background in IT, I decided to start an e-commerce portal through which I could sell handcrafted products – homeware and textiles. Over the last few years, I have managed to build a strong customer base through the portal and my brick and mortar store in Pune.

“Deepali tharkude is renovating the concept of handcraftsmanship through her unique innovation ‘the handicraft studio’”

2. Tell Us About The Handicraft Studio Along With The Services That You Offer. Also, Tell Us How Do You Uniquely Run The Functions Of The Company?

The Handicraft Studio is a curated collection of handcrafted tableware, serving ware and homeware as well as handwoven stoles, dupattas and menswear accessories. We specialize in products that beautify you and your homes. Best suited for festive and lifestyle gifting, we provide exclusive gifts such as wedding favors as well as festive gifting for domestic and international clientele. We try to work with natural materials like wood, metal and stone for our homeware collection. The philosophy behind the brand when we started, was to blend different cultures to create products that were aesthetic as well as useful. That’s why you’ll find a salad bowl, which is a western concept but with an Indian mynah bird design enameled on it or a pizza platter in bright red and gold or a chip and dip platter in natural metal and indigo paisley designs. This way, our product range appeals to contemporary as well as traditional tastes.

3. What Were The Major Challenges Faced By You While Establishing The Handicraft Studio And How Has Your Journey Been So Far?

The journey has been amazing – a series of challenges and achievements, small and big celebrations and lessons learned. The challenge has primarily been (and continues to be) getting international exposure and communication with craftspeople. Of course, technology has helped in a big way, but there are still some times when communicating with craftspeople is difficult. Personally, the biggest challenge was a change in my mindset. Like I said, having had no background in business, the decision to take a risk like this to start and build a business that is completely new in terms of area/field of expertise was a very tough one, but I’m glad I took it!

“The handicraft studio is a curated collection of handcrafted tableware, serving ware and homeware as well as handwoven stoles, dupattas and menswear accessories”

4. What Are Your Future Plans? Where Do You See The Company Moving In The Coming Days?

In the next few months, we are planning to delve deeper into both aspects – the art and design side as well as the customer side. We have started actively looking to build relationships with international B2B customers. At the same time, we are trying to discover arts and crafts that are losing ground in the modern world and working on how they can be adapted to suit contemporary taste. As we go international, we would like to keep our crafts alive and garner appreciation for the skilled craftsmanship that has been passed down from one generation to the next.

Deepali Tharkude, Founder, The Handicraft Studio

An accomplished professional in a leadership role, with a demonstrated history of working in the eLearning industry, Deepali Tharkude is skilledin Business Planning, Operations Management, Retail, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Team Building.A new-age leading entrepreneur Deepali is a strong business development professional graduated from University of Pune.