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Quietly Fierce
A soft-spoken mother of three who earned extra income for her family by weaving rugs from home, Prem was initially hesitant (and admittedly intimidated) when a Jaipur Rugs branch manager offered her the position of Bunkar Sakhi, a quality supervisor position.
The job was part of Jaipur Rugs’ initiative to develop grassroots leadership positions within the artisan community, and becoming a Bunkar Sakhi would require a three-day, off-site training. It was there where Prem’s mindset shifted. She was pleasantly surprised not only by the like-minded friends she made but also how empowered she felt.
A Bunkar Sakhi is responsible for maintaining the quality of weavers’ work, but — as Prem learned during her training — also serves as a weaver’s mentor and guide. Traditionally a male-held position, a female Bunkar Sakhi is able to connect on a more personal level to the artisans, who are 85 percent women. Prem now leads quality maintenance for 100 artisans, a job that’s allowed her to help weavers succeed, while also achieving immense personal growth. “From someone who hesitated to consciously get out of her house, to visiting every loom in the village every day, I feel empowered,” she says. “Nothing is impossible.”
“From someone who hesitated to consciously get out of her house, to visiting every loom in the village every day, I feel empowered. Nothing is impossible.” — Prem Bunkar Sakh
Someplace In Time
Vintage adjective : of old, recognized, and enduring interest, importance, or quality: classic.
A collection of eras captured into a single moment — a tangible expression of past, present, and future — the Someplace in Time collection represents both nostalgia and progression, heritage and the contemporary.
Age-old techniques meet modern colors as Afghan wool is carded, spun, dyed, and hand-knotted. Next, an innovative washing method—newly created to mimic the antique—creates an authentically worn effect that’s timeworn in appearance and modern in appeal. The authentic look and feel of a vintage heirloom—with all the standard and custom size options of a brand new rug.
Vintage rugs made anew. The beautiful history of years gone by encapsulated in a tangible, grounding masterpiece.
Home, A Love Story
She had never been so happy that her family had found their forever home: a historic, 1920s bungalow they’d renovated in September of last year.
Her family had settled right in as if they’d always lived there. It was here where their next chapter would take shape.
After they’d wrapped up the last of the last of the decorating details—a pink, toile de jouy wallpaper in their daughter’s room; antique French baskets repurposed as pendant light fixtures; a family-friendly entry rug that would stand up to sticky fingers and high traffic—her family had settled right in as if they’d always lived there. It was here where their next chapter would take shape.
Her favorite place was the corner window of the study, where she would sit uninterrupted, tucked away from the rest of the household, and turn attention to her poetry. That summer was filled with stolen pockets of time—mostly evenings after the kids were asleep and the to-do list was paused—when she’d curl up in an armchair or sprawl out on the rug and weave stories the way she had always loved.
Letting go of preconceived ideas allowed everything to come together the way it was meant to be.
Trusting the Process
They say that sometimes the best things in life are unplanned, and that was certainly true when Nashville-based interior designer Lori Paranjape and her design team designed a 9,000-square-foot, Tudor-style showhouse.
Her overall concept — a fresh take on traditional style — served as the foundation of the home’s design, but the execution, Paranjape says, was the perfect example of “how organic it is to do an installation of a large-scale project . Things come to gether onsite in a way you can’t anticipate.”
When installing the breakfast room, for instance, the designer was particularly struck by how well the rug — a hand-knotted, gray-and-white design — complimented the room’s color scheme, and how different it look ed from what she remembered.
Then she realized: “It was rolled up inside-out, and I kept looking at it thinking, ‘wow that dark contrast is really nice in here.’” When they rolled out the rug correctly — right-side-up — something about the rug’s lighter scheme felt off. “I had everybody move everything out of the room and roll it out the way I originally saw it, and then I thought,’ This is it, this is the rug,’” Paranjape says.
"I think that’s the magic of doing installations and having trust with the client. It was a happy accident that the rug was rolled up that way, and I love the result. Letting go of preconceived ideas allowed everything to come together the way it was meant to be."
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