Jodi is an India-based design studio and marketplace founded in 2014 by longtime friends Gauri Verma and Karuna Laungani. We are an Indian high-street, slow fashion brand that is inspired by our shared love for craft, culture, fashion and travel.
Our manifesto is to offer joyful, fashion-forward designs for your home and wardrobe. We work with natural, Indian textiles and champion artisanal craft techniques such as hand block printing, bandhini dyeing, and hand embroidery among others. The results are entirely unique and we hope they bring a bit of colour and wonder to your world.
Jodi won the Grazia Young Fashion Awards, 2015, and has been featured in the Indian editions of magazines like ELLE, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Femina, and more. While home for us in Pune, Maharashtra, we’re also available at international retailers in America, Dubai, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the UK.
Jodi is an India-based design studio and marketplace founded in 2014 by longtime friends Gauri Verma and Karuna Laungani. We are an Indian high-street, slow fashion brand that is inspired by our shared love for craft, culture, fashion and travel.
We are fashion stylists turned entrepreneurs and designers, Karuna Laungani and Gauri Verma. The two us met while working at Elle, a fashion magazine, and immediately connected over our shared love for craft and a fun, serendipitous coincidence that we both had a twin sibling. When we decided to start a brand together we named it Jodi, the Hindi word for pair. Our logo is a winking eye, a nod to the fact that we look at life with a bit of humour and that we love to play with fun pairings – print and colour, craft and high street, India and the world.
Our experience in the fashion industry made us realise early on that India’s highly-skilled artisans would play a key role in our label. This led to a few months long search for the perfect production partner that took us from Telangana to Gujarat and finally ended in the old city of Jaipur. That was where we were lucky enough to meet Shankarlalji, a generational hand-block printing artisan. Over meals with his family, sipping chai on his terrace, and ideating in the workshop above his home, the first Jodi collection with 30 pieces was born. And a few years later, Shankarlalji’s son Vicky had his own his own set of twin girls. Like we said, serendipitous!
Along with Shankarlalji and his team of four, we partner with multiple small-scale manufacturers on techniques ranging from bandhini dyeing to zardozi embroidery. We release four collections a year and our offerings include womenswear, menswear, home, jewellery and even pet accessories.
We are fashion stylists turned entrepreneurs and designers, Karuna Laungani and Gauri Verma. The two us met while working at Elle, a fashion magazine, and immediately connected over our shared love for craft and a fun, serendipitous coincidence that we both had a twin sibling. When we decided to start a brand together we named it Jodi, the Hindi word for pair. Our logo is a winking eye, a nod to the fact that we look at life with a bit of humour and that we love to play with fun pairings – print and colour, craft and high street, India and the world.
Our clothes come with a disclaimer that it might take two weeks for a Jodi product to reach you. And that’s because everything is drawn and designed by us and developed in partnership with our network of small-scale manufacturers. We make a limited number of pieces each month, most of it made as per demand. This allows us to make sure that every Jodi item is produced with care in an ethical and sustainable manner.
We are building a label that prioritises fair wages, supporting family businesses, and small-scale production. We dream of building Jodi into an enduring heritage brand, one that puts the spotlight back on India’s rich legacy of craft and design.
Every Jodi print is totally unique and every Jodi dress is one of a kind. This is because we work with artisanal techniques like hand-block printing that lend every piece a unique je ne sais quoi.
There’s evidence that hand-block exiting existed in India over 3,000 years ago. It is a multistep process that takes many hands which has been practiced in Rajasthan for over 500 years.
We design our patterns first in Pune – taking inspiration from the stories, crafts, and art forms that inspire us. These designs are then developed further together with Shankarlalji and his team who lovingly hand carve them onto teak wood blocks. A simple block might take 2 days but a more complex design that requires multiple blocks to execute can take as long as a 7-8 days to complete before it gets Shankarlalji’s approval. The block is then soaked in oil for 2 days to soften.
Once the block is ready it is dipped into dye and then stamped onto the fabric with a precision that takes years to perfect. The dyed cloth is then treated further with metallic salts and dried in the sun for about 8 to 10 hours so that the colour fastens. It is then washed once with detergent, then with fabric conditioner, and finally one last time to remove any impurities and starch before it is ready to be cut into our designs.
Every Jodi print is totally unique and every Jodi dress is one of a kind. This is because we work with artisanal techniques like hand-block printing that lend every piece a unique je ne sais quoi.
Tie-dye, bandhini, clamp dyeing, screen printing – we love playing with colour and pattern and we experiment with different dyeing techniques for our collections.
CLAMP DYEING is when fabric is folded concertina style into a chosen pattern and wooden clamps are used to hold the folds in place before the cloth is then soaked in dye. The process is repeated for any additional colours or designs, depending on the required result. Once the dyeing process is complete the fabric is washed with a dye fix so that it doesn’t smudge and it is then treated in a heat drum for finishing. Our unit of dyers in Mumbai and Pune work with non-toxic, Azo-free dyes that don’t harm the environment.
BANDHINI is one of the more popular methods of dyeing in India. We work with a family of dyers in Kutch who’ve taught us the beauty of the craft. A pattern is marked on a cloth and the fabric is then tied into small knots, usually with a waxed thread, before it is dipped in dye. The resulting pattern is made up of small, intricate dots which make bandhini unique.
Tie-dye, bandhini, clamp dyeing, screen printing – we love playing with colour and pattern and we experiment with different dyeing techniques for our collections.
All our Jodi prints are designed in our studio taking inspiration from different cultures, motifs and crafts and then sent to our manufacturers for converting it into a screen. The process involves transferring a stencilled design onto a surface using a mesh screen, ink, and a rubber blade. Our designs come to life when the screen is lowered. The process is very versatile as we can achieve any form and scale.
The designs are developed by our screen-printer and his team. Once the printing is complete, it goes through a finishing process and is then sent for production of your JODI clothing.
Applique and embroidery are central to JODI's designs, which feature intricate handcrafted details that elevate their clothing into wearable art. Applique is an ornamental needlework technique where one or more pieces of fabric are attached to a larger background fabric to create intricate pictures or patterns.
Our skilled artisans utilize a range of techniques and materials, from delicate zardozi and aari embroidery with materials like resham, cotton, glass beads, gotta patti lace, and sequins. We embrace both hand and machine embroidery to realize our distinctive patterns and applique designs, creating garments that are truly unique and special.
Jodi is a lifestyle. Our love for craft is visible in everything we create and also in the community we want to build. There are so many talented artists and craftspeople across the country whose work we admire and in 2020, while in lockdown, we decided to bring some of their work to our clients. The result is Jodi Bazaar, a marketplace of niche décor and lifestyle handcrafted brands that we hope you will enjoy.
We ourselves delve into ceramic art, lamp making and art prints. Our ceramics are a curation of everyday essentials with a twist. Little handcrafted symbols of love from our table to yours. Our lamps are locally made and carefully handcrafted by artisans in exclusive juicy JODI prints. Our soft muls used to craft our lamps are designed in our office and block printed by artisans in Jaipur. Our original Jodi art prints are inspired by the idea of soulmates, forever friendships, empowered women and souks and markets all over the world. The canvas prints are printed with archival inks on 400 GSM Hahnemühle Daguerre Canvas matte coated, poly-cotton inkjet coating which is acid and lignin-free.
Jodi is a lifestyle. Our love for craft is visible in everything we create and also in the community we want to build. There are so many talented artists and craftspeople across the country whose work we admire and in 2020, while in lockdown, we decided to bring some of their work to our clients. The result is Jodi Bazaar, a marketplace of niche décor and lifestyle handcrafted brands that we hope you will enjoy.
In 2021 we decided to adapt our Jodi motifs into a line of jewellery. Crafted in Jaipur, these talismans are designed to be worn simply to bring warmth and charm to your look. All our jewellery is made of pure 18k gold plating on brass and we use gemstones such as onyx, garnet, amethyst and peridot for colour.
Our team of block makers, block printers, weavers, embroiderers, dyers, pattern masters, tailors, checkers, designers, our production team, graphic and content team, customer care, administration and logistics - all make Jodi come together as one.
All Jodi pieces pass through multiple hand processes before reaching you, which makes each of them unique!
