• Women Entrepreneur

At the corner of Victoria Layout in Bengaluru, stands an inconspicuous pale pink house, the home of Chimmy Nanjappa and her daughter Pavithra Muddaya. ‘Vimor’ is not just their residence but also a treasure trove of South India’s rich heritage of traditional weaves and designs for over 30 years now.

As revivalists and textile workers, the mother-daughter duo launched Vimor Sarees in 1975 from the same room where it continues to sell cotton and silk sarees, hand-woven with designs revived from 100-year old patterns. But the business idea initially stemmed from necessity and with it came invention. “We became entrepreneurs by necessity,” claims Muddaya.

Nanjappa’s passion for sarees is older than Vimor. Before becoming an entrepreneur she worked at Cauvery Handicrafts in Bengaluru; her job involved selling and promoting sarees at world fairs. “I got the idea during this time,” she says. Her late husband, who was a lawyer, was well-known in Molkalmuru, a popular weaving village in Karnataka. When a case took him there one day he encouraged Nanjappa to bring back a few pieces of the famous Molkalmuru saree to sell in the city. This marked the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey.

Between the years 1972-’74 Nanjappa started to sell old temple sarees informally from boxes, sourced from the weaving community there. However, after her husband’s demise, selling sarees became a necessity for self-sustenance and supporting Muddaya, who was only 17 years old then.

“We had a reliable agent source 100-year-old temple sarees for us,” explains Nanjappa. But being old, the sarees came with defects and stains, requiring much repair. The mother-daughter duo patched up the imperfections by printing/embroidering on them only to realize that unknowingly, they had created beautiful pieces.

Once their life stabilized after 1977, sourcing originals became a tougher task, and the two began to copy and revive old patterns and narrowed the segment to hand-woven silk and cotton sarees only. “This eventually became our business and our specialization today,” points out Muddaya. Vimor caters to personalities like Shabana Azmi, Waheeda Rehman, Nandita Das and even the Gandhi family (from the late Indira Gandhi to Sonia Gandhi).

However, Vimor had a twin goal right from its early days; helping itself and the weaver community, as a win-win situation for all. “Our goal was never to become big with multiple shops across the country,” mentions Muddaya. This phase also coincided with a slowdown in the weaving community. The weavers of South India were losing out to more fashionable materials like synthetics. “Their income dwindled and they would reach out to us for help,” she says.

According to these entrepreneurs, most weavers did not know what was saleable. “They operated with fear, randomly copied a neighboring weaver’s design,” says Muddaya. During her days at University Law College, Muddaya had spent a lot of time post-class at the Weaver Service Center (under the Ministry of Textiles). Its observer trainee program gave her a short cut to design and techniques, which helped her understand the nuances of each piece.

Today Muddaya is also on the board of Weaver Service Center. So much has been her impact on this channel that now the second generation weavers come to Nanjappa and Muddaya for work.

Chiranjeevi is one such person. He belongs to a weaver’s family from Andhra Pradesh, and knew Nanjappa during her stint at Cauvery. When she started Vimor, he was only too happy to weave about 20 sarees a month designed by them. “I have learnt a lot from them about design and color,” he says. “They are intellectuals of the handloom sector,” he adds.

With the knowledge she had gained from her Weaver Service Center sessions, Muddaya was able to guide and mentor more weavers who reached out to them. From 1980 onwards mother-daughter duo found themselves working full time with weavers which included traveling to their villages, giving them confidence to revive their profession. Today, Vimor has a network of 50 weavers between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka on a buy-back guarantee. “I anticipate demand and customer choice,” Muddaya explains. Mentorship is also a constant part of her involvement with the weavers.

These days handlooms are back in fashion and weavers earn well. According to Nanjappa and Muddaya, wages can start at Rs.2,000 per weaver, per saree, and can go up to Rs.7,000 for a master weaver. In fact, many of their own weavers have gone on to become crorepatis. “We are very proud and happy with everyone’s success,” says Nanjappa. “The goodwill and affection we have earned from this community cannot be measured in numerical terms,” adds Muddaya.

©Entrepreneur August 2010

Tags:
Chimmy Nanjappa, Pavithra Muddaya, Vimor Sarees, weavers