Beginning
Sparrows, reminds a detailed summer afternoon scene from our childhood; long courtyard and clothes hanging on a metal wire and a super powerful sun in the mid sky and precisely there comes sparrows: they used to eat something from the mud yard and sing. Sparrows have been an unseparated part of our homes.
Launched in 2019 as a clothing brand by Ananya , Sparrows believes in the beauty of hand-made processes of clothing. Sparrows as a brand is more about slow textile, traditional process of weaving and dyeing, the end point is reflective of the journey of many processes. We make clothing for everyone who believes in nature and textiles for home usage. The brand focus is on textile development and sustainable usage of materials.
An idea
The process of the brand started at the museum of Hyderabad in the year of 2018. While visiting one of the largest collections in India, salar jhung museum; the idea of a slow textile brand or traditionally processed clothing line, took a shape!
Journey
The journey or the process started at our home; shantiniketan. While spending a good 7 years in shantiniketan, mostly hanging around Kala Bhavana, Ananya calls Shantiniketan her Second home.
She came to shantiniketan for higher studies (master’s degree in journalism and mass communication). Then completing the education, she did a few jobs, in Kolkata, she was a copy writing intern in Ogilvy and Mather and broadcast assistant in A.I.R (all India radio). Having a dream for pursuing a Ph.D. programme, but right there she was lost and confused, having a thousand thoughts in her mind!
One fine morning she was going to office, an early morning call and she was receiving numerous calls from her seniors and she started running in the middle of the city, and she suddenly noticed few horses running beside her and she was speeding up and after sometime she thought, “why am I running in this road, that too with horses? These horses are doing their job and they are free and happy in their life. But am I?” she decided to quit her job, recognised the love she always had from childhood, for art and textiles and came to shantiniketan!
Again coming to shantiniketan with a thought of pursuing textile as a career was a challenge. After spending hours and hours (one and half years) of research she knew what materials, she needs for her work. KHADI: a traditional and sustainable fabric for all weather! Then came the process of colour of the fabric, as decided earlier based on various research and facts and articles, she chose NATURAL DYE OR ORGANIC DYE (one of the oldest processes of dyeing!)
The beauty of Shantiniketan has always been a part of her journey, shantiniketan can be considered as a place where Ananya was growing up mostly, as her grandparents’ home is only a few kilometres away from shantiniketan. shantiniketan is submerged in history and also home to several indigenous handicrafts and home for many artists. While growing up seeing the many processes of textiles, like: bandni, Batik, Kantha stitch, dyeing, there was a seed of textile that was growing inside her gradually and one day finally it got a shape of SPARROWS!