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Ayesha And Manisha Desai Renew Your Memories With Cornucopia

Published

6 years ago

April 27, 2018

FWDmedia

Images from: Cornucopia Concepts

Ayesha and Manisha Desai’s venture Cornucopia Concepts recycles and gives new life to your old clothes

Text credit: Charishma Thankappan

Discarding your old, well loved, and well-worn clothes is an emotional matter. The sweater your grandmother knit for you as a child, the jacket your father bought for you when you were going for your first trip to the mountains with your friends, the skirt your mom loving sewed for you, or that ethereal lehenga that you got stitched for your sister’s wedding a few years ago and don’t fit into any more. They are not just pieces of clothes, but are a repository of your memories and an unspoiled storehouse of nostalgia.

But if you feel compelled to cast them away, having lost their purpose, you may now think again. For, the sister duo of Ayesha and Manisha Desai will help convert your beloved apparel into useful, re-purposed ware.

Founders of Cornucopia Concepts Pvt. Ltd., Ayesha and Manisha reuse, recycle, and work towards a sustainable way of life by transforming old clothes and fabrics into quilts and bedcovers. Their aim is to provide sustainable alternatives to everyday utility items through working on the principles of fair trade, sustainability and environmentally safe alternatives to plastic. Manisha looks at the designing and implementation aspect while Ayesha looks at the marketing and public relations.

In an exclusive interview with FWD Life, the enterprising sisters talk about their venture.

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Why did you choose to make quilts and blankets?

We had a bunch of ‘never to be thrown’ keepsake clothes that were taking up too much cupboard space. We couldn’t bear to part with them. That’s when we realised that we can convert them into a godhadi (a patchwork quilt) – just like our grandmother did! We got to keep our clothes and were left with a really cool blanket! Interest from family and friends spurred us to make similar bedcovers and quilts for them and before we knew it we were making it commercially.

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Who are your target consumers?

Anyone with a cupboard full of old clothes! We’ve has a variety of customers, a lot of parents who want to make memory quilts from their children’s clothes. Some grandparents who want to gift a memory quilt too. And then we have people who have lost their dear ones and want to preserve their memories in the form of a quilt or bedcover.

What are the challenges you face in your enterprise?

We work with people’s precious memories. Clothes that have been preserved for years, that have so much meaning and nostalgic significance. We cannot afford to make a mistake. Each piece that we create needs to be flawless. This can at times be stressful.

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Do you have an in-house design team or do you work with designers from outside?

We design all our products in-house. In the future, we will be more than happy to collaborate with innovators to increase our bouquet of products.

How do you promote your initiative?

Mainly through our Facebook page and Instagram account.

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Will you be expanding to more products other than quilts and blankets?

Yes, definitely. We are already making bags and rugs. But we would love to explore other media like glass and plastic – recycling and upcycling them to make utility products.

What are your inspirations?

Our grandfather. He was part of the real zero waste generation. A generation that used and reused and recycled and re-purposed long before they became cool hash tags. Ajoba, as we called him was the epitome of re-purposing and reusing. Newspapers with ads that contained blank spaces were saved to scribble his limericks on, ice cream cups were saved to be used as planters, left over marble squares from the kitchen construction were made into paper weights…. the list is endless. We grew up within this structure of using an item till its absolute last breath. And it is this very culture that we want to promote through Cornucopia. We want to encourage people to relook at their possessions in a new light. We want them to stop and think before they purchase anything new. Ask themselves if there was anything within the home that can be reused or re-purposed. Our quilts are just the beginning – to spur a conversation around re-purposing.

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According to you, what are the main challenges of waste management in India, as the final waste collected from homes goes into landfills or is burnt in rural areas. What is the solution to this? Where is the government lacking?

Unchecked consumerism. Today, we don’t think twice before purchasing a product, whether it’s clothing, appliances, food, you name it. The use and throw culture is becoming rampant. Very few people opt to ‘repair’ or reuse’ or simply ‘refuse’. Having said that, the entire onus cannot be on the consumer. We need to have stringent policies on manufacturers with regards to their packaging. Each manufacturer needs to be responsible for the entire lifecycle of their product. The onus should not be only on the consumer. The government needs to put into place strong regulations on sustainable packaging.

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