Founder Meher Kapoor on a borrowed bench, a first order of twelve bags and staying small on purpose.
Karvelle started in 2014 with one bench, borrowed from a saddler in the old city of Jaipur. Meher Kapoor had trained as a textile designer and spent four years working for export houses, where she watched bags being made by the thousand.
The first bag
"I wanted to know if I could make one bag properly, from start to finish," she says. "It took me three weeks and it was not very good. But I understood every part of it."
The saddler, Yusuf, taught her to saddle stitch. She still uses the awl he gave her.
Twelve orders
The second bag was better. A friend asked to buy it. Then a small shop in Delhi ordered twelve. Meher made all twelve herself over two months, working in the evenings.
By 2016 there were three makers and a room of their own. The name came from the Hindi word karigar, meaning artisan, softened into something that could sit quietly on a card.
Choosing to stay small
Growth was offered more than once. A department store wanted five hundred pieces a season. Meher declined.
"To make that many we would have had to split the work, one person cutting, one stitching, one finishing. Nobody would have made a whole bag. That was the thing I had left to get away from."
Today there are eleven makers. Each makes a complete bag and signs the card that goes with it. The studio produces a few hundred pieces a year and every one is numbered.
What has not changed
The leather still comes from tanneries Meher has visited. The hardware is still solid brass. And any bag, from any year, can still come back to the studio to be repaired.
"A customer sent us a tote from 2015 last month," she says. "The handles had worn through. We replaced them in a day. The rest of the bag was better than when it left."
What comes next
More of the same, done a little better. A few new shapes each year, in small batches. And an open door, for anyone who wants to see how a bag is made.
