Ritu Jadwani \u201912 mr runs a fair-trade fashion design brand that turns recycled materials into clothing in India that is then sold online\u2009\u2014\u2009something she learned at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy grandmother would use old saris to design curtains and dresses and scarves,\u201d says Jadwani, whose company is Namaste NYC. \u201cMy mother would design dresses for big occasions, like weddings for us. So recycling and cultural sustainability were values I saw growing up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jadwani\u2019s first degree was in fashion design at India\u2019s National Institute of Fashion Technology. She came to NC State for the master\u2019s program in global innovation management, which involved studying in France and Raleigh, and an internship in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Returning to India, she founded Namaste NYC, working with hundreds of primarily women artisans in rural villages throughout India. Because the work is remote rather than on-site, it can be more easily done by people with disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWorking full time for women is still not allowed in many regions of India, and women have to ask permission from husbands,\u201d says Jadwani, 33, who lives in Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat. \u201cThat was an issue to overcome, along with the local crafts slowly diminishing and dying, due to the modernizations in India. So I started this initiative to create employment opportunities in crafts and textiles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Check the company\u2019s online catalog etsy.com\/shop\/NamasteNYCIndia and you\u2019ll find everything from scarves to footwear, made from recycled materials when-ever possible. \u201cThe initial work was a lot on the ground at the grassroot level and marketing the \u2018brand\u2019 on global scale,\u201d Jadwani says. \u201cVisiting villages, finding the team, collaborating with artisans, doing samples, meeting buyers. Now that the team and supply chain are set, my work is more management and design. But craft can have a very therapeutic value. Even now, at the end of a long day, I try to print or paint or color. It is very meditative.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n
Ritu Jadwani \u201912 mr runs a fair-trade fashion design brand that turns recycled materials into clothing in India that is then sold online\u2009\u2014\u2009something she learned at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy grandmother would use old saris to design curtains and dresses and scarves,\u201d says Jadwani, whose company is Namaste NYC. \u201cMy mother would design dresses for big occasions, like weddings for us. So recycling and cultural sustainability were values I saw growing up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jadwani\u2019s first degree was in fashion design at India\u2019s National Institute of Fashion Technology. She came to NC State for the master\u2019s program in global innovation management, which involved studying in France and Raleigh, and an internship in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Returning to India, she founded Namaste NYC, working with hundreds of primarily women artisans in rural villages throughout India. Because the work is remote rather than on-site, it can be more easily done by people with disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWorking full time for women is still not allowed in many regions of India, and women have to ask permission from husbands,\u201d says Jadwani, 33, who lives in Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat. \u201cThat was an issue to overcome, along with the local crafts slowly diminishing and dying, due to the modernizations in India. So I started this initiative to create employment opportunities in crafts and textiles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Check the company\u2019s online catalog etsy.com\/shop\/NamasteNYCIndia and you\u2019ll find everything from scarves to footwear, made from recycled materials when-ever possible. \u201cThe initial work was a lot on the ground at the grassroot level and marketing the \u2018brand\u2019 on global scale,\u201d Jadwani says. \u201cVisiting villages, finding the team, collaborating with artisans, doing samples, meeting buyers. Now that the team and supply chain are set, my work is more management and design. But craft can have a very therapeutic value. Even now, at the end of a long day, I try to print or paint or color. It is very meditative.\u201d <\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ritu Jadwani \u201912 MR returned to her native India to launch a fair-trade fashion design brand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":false,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"Ritu Jadwani \u201912 MR turned to her native India to launch a fair-trade fashion design brand.\",\"displayCategoryID\":5,\"caption\":\"Photograph courtesy of Ritu Jadwani.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[318,837,997],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-1414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-class-act","category-stories","tag-david-menconi","tag-namaste-nyc","tag-ritu-jadwani"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":5,"name":"Best Bets","slug":"best-bets","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":52,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5043,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414\/revisions\/5043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1414"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=1414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}