Weaving sustainable, inclusive, and “soft” futures: a conversation with Rakhi Rajeev

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There is something quietly radical about choosing softness and care in a world marked by armed conflicts, political polarization, and dystopian horizons. In the universe of KalaLiving, softness is not an aesthetic. It is a language, a narrative with an enormous power for change. A way of caring, remembering, connecting. Of honoring hands often left unseen and voices too often unheard.

Founded by Rakhi Rajeev, a woman whose life stretches between India and Paris, KalaLiving brings together eco-luxury, handwoven children’s textiles, and the lived realities of women artisans. It is a space where threads carry stories of care, of inherited labor, of transmission.

This conversation, like the textiles themselves, is an invitation to slow down, to listen closely, and to recognize that every thread carries a life within it.

We begin at the beginning.

1.

Rakhi Rajeev, could you introduce yourself to us, as a woman shaped by journeys between India and Paris? What threads of your life have led you here? When you think of “home,” does it live in a place, a person, or a practice?

I’ve lived between India and Paris, and both have shaped me in ways I carry without thinking about them anymore.India gave me the instinct to read situations quickly, to understand what’s happening beneath what’s being said, and to stay steady even when things are moving fast around me. Paris added something different. It made things sharper. It doesn’t reward noise or over-explaining. It asks for clarity, for intention, for knowing where you stand.

The path here hasn’t been one direction or one identity. It has been roles where I’ve often been in the middle of people, expectations, and decisions. Listening closely, making sense of complexity, and finding a way forward when things aren’t straightforward. Over time, that becomes less of a task and more of a way of thinking.When I think of “home,” it doesn’t sit in geography or in someone else. It feels more internal than that. It’s the space where things feel steady, where there’s no need to adjust or perform, where I can simply be clear in myself and what I’m doing.

2.

Before KalaLiving became a platform, what was the first thread (memory, touch, or story) that drew you toward textiles and the world of making?Was there a woman, within your family or beyond, who first shaped this connection?

It didn’t start as a strategy. It started as a conversation at home.

When I first said I wanted to take this risk, my mother was the first person I spoke to. There was no hesitation in her response. She supported it fully, with a kind of strength that didn’t need explanation. That moment made the decision real, not just personal.Then I spoke to my sister. She was already inside the fashion system, seeing its pace and its pressure from within. She chose to step away from it. Not as an escape, but as a decision. We decided to build something together, with our mother as the emotional foundation behind it. That became the first structure of KalaLiving.

The second layer came from the field.When I went to the weaving clusters, I didn’t go with a concept. I went to understand. I spoke to the women working there. What I heard was not just about craft, but about life that had been fixed in one place for decades.Twenty-five years on a loom. Income that never crossed a basic threshold. No visible career movement. No structural change in their conditions despite lifetime of work. And still, the skill, the patience, the discipline remained untouched.That stayed with me.At that point, KalaLiving stopped being an idea about textiles. It became a response to what I had seen and heard. If something was going to be built, it had to include the reality of these women , not as narrative, but as structure. As people whose work is visible, valued, and fairly compensated.So KalaLiving is built from three starting points that exist together: my mother’s support, my sister’s decision to step into this with me, and the 20 women artisans who made it impossible for me to treat this as anything less than a responsibility.

3.

KalaLiving exists within a space that is both aspirational and ethical. “Eco” and “luxury” do not always sit easily together.How do you reconcile them in your practice and what does true luxury mean to you today? Have you had to resist industry norms to remain aligned with that definition?

For me, eco and luxury don’t sit in conflict. The conflict only exists when luxury is defined by excess or image rather than by responsibility.I see luxury in a simpler way. It is when a brand does the right thing without compromise. When the materials are considered, when the people behind the work are paid fairly, when the process is honest from start to finish. If those things are not in place, it doesn’t feel like luxury to me, no matter how it looks on the surface.

So I don’t see this as something I had to reconcile or resist. It feels like the only way it should be done. The idea that ethics and luxury are separate is, to me, an industry habit rather than a truth. If anything, I feel more aligned when those basics are in place: fairness, respect for craft, and responsibility in how things are made and shared.

That is what luxury means to me today.

4.

Behind each piece lies not just design, but human presence.Your work is shaped by women artisans across India. How do you ensure their voices, stories, and realities are not simply included, but truly centered?What does collaboration look like in practice? Are there moments where they lead the creative direction?

For me, they are not just part of the process. They are the process.What they create comes from experience, instinct, and skill that has been built over time. It is not separated into “design” and “execution” in the way people often describe it. It is all happening together in their hands, in their rhythm, in the way they understand the material. There is a kind of intelligence in that work that doesn’t need to be translated. My role is not to override it or direct it, but to listen to it properly and let it guide what the piece becomes. Because once a thread is placed, once a decision is made in that flow, it carries consequences for the whole piece. Nothing is isolated. Everything is connected.In that sense, collaboration is not about adding their voice in. It is about recognizing that their voice is already leading.

5.

Craft is often romanticized, while women’s labor remains unseen.How do you hold space for dignity, fair exchange, and equity within the beauty you present? What does a truly ethical relationship look like to you, beyond certifications or labels?

Craft becomes empty if the people behind it are not seen clearly.For me, dignity starts with not separating the beauty of the work from the reality of how it is made. The hands that create it are not background. They are central. So, the relationship cannot be built on distance or abstraction. It has to be direct, human, and consistent.Fair exchange is not a concept I attach after the fact. It is the starting point. If someone is contributing skill, time, and generational knowledge, the response to that has to be concrete: fair wages, respect for their pace, and recognition that their work carries value.Equity, for me, is also about agency. Not just giving work, but making space for choice, for input, for influence in what is being created. That is where it moves from transaction to collaboration.An ethical relationship is not defined by labels or external validation. It is defined by what remains when no one is watching the process. Whether people are still treated with the same respect in the small decisions as they are in the visible outcome. Whether there is consistency between what is said and what is done. Whether the people involved are stable, respected, and not made invisible once the product is complete.If that foundation is not there, the final object loses meaning, no matter how it is presented.

6.

In a world of speed and excess, your work invites softness, ritual, and pause.Do you see softness as a form of resistance?Has this philosophy shaped how you build your business, not just what you create?

Softness, for me, is not about aesthetics or slowing down for appearance. It is about refusing the default system of speed, overproduction, and emotional distance that usually defines how things are built.

When I chose KalaLiving, I did not treat it as a brand project. I treated it as a structure I had to live inside. Something that would force alignment between what I believe and what I produce. It became less about communication and more about discipline.

What I call softness is actually control over how something comes into existence. It is the decision to slow the process enough so nothing gets lost or diluted, neither the artisan’s work, nor the material, nor the child who will eventually receive it. It removes urgency as the operating mode and replaces it with accountability at every step.

This way of working is not limited to craft. It shapes how decisions are made, how production is planned, and how much is allowed to exist at any given time. It rejects scale as the primary measure of success. It replaces it with responsibility over each unit produced.

KalaLiving reflects that thinking. Ethics are not positioned as messaging or storytelling. They are embedded into the system, fair structure for artisans, controlled production, certified materials, and clear limits on volume. These are not values stated externally. They are constraints that define how the work is allowed to happen.

This is the reason I chose this direction. Not to build something aspirational, but to remove anything that relies on speed, opacity, or extraction to function. What remains is slower, more intentional, and fully accountable in how it is made and how it exists in the world.

7.

At its heart, this work is also about women, not only as makers, but as carriers of knowledge. What have the women you work with taught you, not just about craft, but about resilience, community, or ways of seeing the world?

What stayed with me is not only what they make, but how they remain inside the work despite what the system has taken from them.The women I met have spent decades at the loom with very little change in their material conditions. No progression in income that reflects their skill. No structural recognition that matches the years invested. Yet they continue.

What I understood through them is a form of loyalty that is not romantic or abstract. It is disciplined. They stay in the craft not because it rewards them fairly, but because the craft itself has become part of their identity. It remains close to them even when everything around them is difficult.

There is a patience in that. A belief that the act of making still holds meaning even when external validation is absent. They return to the loom every day with precision, care, and repetition that does not degrade over time. If anything, it sharpens.That is what shifted my understanding. Resilience is not only endurance under pressure. It is continuity of attention under neglect.

And it reframed how I see KalaLiving. Not as something I am building for them, but something shaped by what they have already sustained for far longer than I have been part of this world.

8.

As Kala Living continues to grow, what systems do you hope it gently unravels, and what new ones might it begin to weave for women, children, and the planet?What does success look like to you? Not in numbers, but in impact?

KalaLiving is not positioned to “fix” a system. It is positioned to expose what becomes visible when you remove speed, opacity, and unnecessary scale from production.

What I want it to gently unravel is the separation between value and visibility. In the current structure, the people who create the work are often the least visible in the value chain. Their time is priced without relation to their skill or lifetime of repetition. Their work exists, but their presence is erased in the final object. That disconnect is what I want to make impossible to ignore.

The second layer is urgency as a default. Most systems are built on acceleration ,faster production, faster demand cycles, faster consumption. That rhythm removes care from the process. KalaLiving rejects that by design. Limited production, longer timelines, and controlled output are not branding choices. They are structural refusals.

What I hope it begins to build in return is a different logic of participation. One where women are not positioned as informal labor inside fragmented supply chains, but as recognized workers within a system that accounts for their time, health, and stability. Formal structure, predictable income, and safe working conditions are not added benefits. They are the base.

For children, the intention is simpler. What touches them should not carry hidden compromise. Materials, dyes, and production processes should not require justification later. Safety should be embedded, not communicated after the fact.

For the planet, the shift is in reduction without loss. Fewer units, slower cycles, natural materials, and elimination of unnecessary intermediaries. Not as sustainability messaging, but as constraint-led production.

Success, for me, is not scale. It is continuity without distortion.

If the women working with us are earning with dignity, if their work is recognized without being romanticized, if their conditions improve in a way that is measurable in their own lives, not in external narratives, then the system is working.

If a child can receive something that has been made without compromise in material or process, then the object is valid.

If production remains small enough to stay accountable to every hand involved, then the structure is intact.

That is the measure. Not expansion, but integrity sustained over time without dilution.