Life in equilibrium
Our Story - Part 1
Our Story - Part 2
WASATAN
Wasatan, previously Apres-Soleil, is a quintessential Boon Initiative – bringing together micro-enterprise and an opportunity to provide women with home-based worked. On a personal note Après-Soleil fuses my heritage as a Mauritian-tropical-beach urchin, and my life with Kumail (in whose memory I have set up the Boon Initiatives foundation) in Pakistan. Living here with him I discovered a whole new world of awe inspiring artisanal mastery, one that is unfortunately endangered by the advent of computerised embroidery. What could be more natural than a beach and resort-wear line dedicated to the preservation of this heritage?
Wasatan is committed to slow fashion, each piece is created working with the artisans, and selecting from a cornucopia of fabrics from small retailers, and laces and buttons from local haberdashers. Wasatan celebrates the small and the local. The pieces are cut by the Master Tailor at Dhaga (A Boon Initiative funded Micro Enterorise), embroidered by the Dhaga network of machine or hand embroiderers, and sown either in-house (if complex) or by the Boon Initiative team of seamstresses currently in training, working from home. On the check-out page, we have added a tipping option: your tips will be distributed to the team members who crafted your products.
Wasatan is 100% non-profit, all profits are either re-invested in other micro-enterprise projects or used to help those who need a helping hand, through the Boon Initiatives Foundation.
The Dhaga Story:
Dhaga is the Urdu word for thread, fibre, strand. For Kumail, “we are all nothing but strands (Dna) of strands (the one-dimensional string of String theory) of energy”.
Alone every strand is vulnerable, but woven together with others, strands weave together the fabric of communal strength, they tell the tales of richer lives, they unfold a tapestry of connections and love.
The Boon Initiatives helped fund a small shop Dhaga, where a small team of craftsmen ply their trade free of all rent and utility expenses Wasatan was set-up to provide demand for Dhaga’s services, as large commercial-brands are driving out the demand for custom-made. Dhaga is further extended by a team of home based seamstresses and craftswomen. The professional tailoring of Dhaga helps ensure the quality of the finish of our products.
The Dhaga Seamstresses and Craftswomen:
One of the fundamental tenets of the Boon Initiatives is to empower women with financial independence. Kumail lost his father when he was only 11. He was raised by his sister, a Doctor, who kept her entire family going. She was his anchor. Women, Kumail thought could do anything. Extending Dhaga to cater to this objective was thus natural, and a no-brainer. We are currently working on training a team of seamstresses to whom each Dhaga piece will be sent for sewing once cut by the Dhaga tailor master. The Dhaga seamstresses work at their own pace, and around their family duties.
Every-time you buy a WASATAN piece, you are weaving together your own story into the mesh of our connected lives. From the little fabric shops, to the Dhaga Embroiderers fighting to keep their disappearing trade, to the women looking to actively support their own dreams for themselves and families, to all of the Boon Initiative heroes who keep it all going,