This Independence Day

Some pretty gifts from An Indian Summer 

Two discount codes and two giveaways

Just for You, my fabulous peeps!

 Kahani

Kahani (story) is Lisanne's dream project and has been launched recently. Lisanne, originally from Montreal, Canada, has been living in New York since 2007 and has worked as an Art Director for many magazines and fashion retailers. A visit to Kutch, India and the crafts she saw there, inspired her to design and launch her collection of scarves, bags and jewelry in a way that helps artisans preserve their craft integrity. 

You can view and shop for Kahani's beautiful collection right here. As a special Independence Day gift to all An Indian Summer reader's, Kahani is offering a 25% discount (with a minimum $25 purchase)! Just use the code indiansummer at the checkout. The discount is applicable till the end of this month. 

Earthen Canvas

Working with hand spun silk, khadi and linen, Arun Kumar Tiwari creates striking contemporary silhouettes in his Earthen Canvas collection. A NIFT graduate, Arun's work is rural in inspiration and urban in presentation. Along with creating very wearable apparel, Arun also dabbles in costume designing and has had many notable projects to his claim. 

Arun's work is available at both online and retail outlets, and he has fabulous Independence Day offer for An Indian Summer readers - a whopping 40% discount! Just use the code EARTHENCANVAS40 when you shop for his products online right here. They do ship internationally, so hurrah! Arun also retails from O Layla in New Delhi and from Sobo in Bombay. Here too, just mention EARTHENCANVAS40 to get a 40% discount on the collection. In case of any further question or issue, just shoot an email to Arun.

Tadpole Store

[Clockwise: Aharin, LimitedEdition,Studio Kink, Studio Saswata]  

The latest cool online store on the block is the Tadpole Store, which offers authentic design from an array of young designers. The brains behind Tadpole Store, Bhavna Bahri and Samarth Mungali, are from NID, and the store is one of their many initiatives to spread the goodness of design. Tadpole Store is the only online store where the focus goes beyond just retailing designer products and elaborates to creating an immersive design experience. Showcases such as Behind the Scene associated with a product present the designer's journey of creating the product. Also, to encourage customer- designer interaction Tadpole Store features biographic accounts of designers as Design Diaries and facilitates social media conversations on mediums like facebook and twitter.

The GiveAway!

For Independence day, Tadpole Store and An Indian Summer would like to giveaway this gorgeous silk cushion cover from Ek Karkhana! You know how to enter the giveaway, right? Let me tell you once again :)

1. Think of a quick rhyme or haiku, using the word 'Tadpole' OR 'Summer'

2. Leave your brilliant rhyme as a comment, right here on An Indian Summer's facebook page

(make sure you are logged into facebook and have liked An Indian Summer's page to do above!)

And, that's it! Bhavna Bahri from Tadpole will pick up the winner on Aug 22nd!

Peacocks and Paisleys

Peacocks and Paisleys, the online store featuring lovely textiles from India, is the brainchild of Priya, a block print enthusiast currently in Australia. Her store features a range of block printed textiles, from quilt covers to curtains to cushions covers. 

Priya is joining in in the Independence Day party, and is giving away a quilt cover and two pillow cases from the serene Turquoise Temple collection! As before, all you need to do to enter:

1. Take a look at the beautiful collection on Peacocks and Paisleys

2. Leave a comment, right here on An Indian Summer's facebook page

(make sure you are logged into facebook and have liked An Indian Summer's page to do above!)

The winner would be selected using random generator on Aug 22nd. Priya would ship anywhere in the world!

Have a brilliant rest of the week folks! 

And many many thanks to all the lovely people and stores featured above for being so generous!

 

Design Hotels Ahoy!

San Giorgio Mykonos is one of the projects of Design Hotels, a company that represents and curates select independent hotels across the world. What caught my eye when I looked at San Giorgio Mykonos was the exquisite simplicity of it's interiors. The charm of white offset by a colorful rug, pillows and cushions, the very put-together-on-the-site kind of furniture, an earthy organic feel to the place, and of course, a certain ethnic influence seen in the furnishing and the decor - made it impossible for me to resist sharing this lovely little place with you. I would have loved to recreate this look in my home, if only I wasn't living in a dust bowl of a city! My interior aspirations aside, this style and look is one of the easiest ways to incorporate a global influence in home interiors. 

[All images: San Giorgio Mykonos]

For my Facebook peeps

A quick note for all my peeps connected with An Indian Summer on facebook:

Apparently a lot of you aren't getting updates from An Indian Summer's page in your news feed. So (a) thanks for letting me know peeps, and (b) that's not good at all! I did some quick check here and there, and people, this is what you need to do.

1. Like the page (i.e. if you haven't liked it yet. Which by the way, if you haven't, just why haven't you? Kindly do so pronto!)

2. Hover/Click over the 'Liked' blue icon and a drop down will appear (see screen shot below)

3. Check (click) 'Show in news feed' 

4. That's it! You'll get all the prettiness from An Indian Summer and occasional dollops of love from me, right there in your facebook news feed!

See ya on facebook then! :)

A home in Bombay

Anavila Sindhu Misra and I have been exchanging creative notes since the time I blogged about her work. We met when she came to Delhi to exhibit her exquisite sarees and fabrics, where she very graciously gifted two handcrafted fabric art works from her studio to me. It was such a pleasure to meet Anavila in person, and as we chatted about our creative likes and dislikes, the blogger in me instinctively knew that her home would be as lovely as her. I pestered her for a home tour, and here we are - the beautiful and distinctive space that Anavila, her husband and their son call home! Anavila also shares her personal style and aesthetics below...

My home style is very India inspired. From the wall art to the textiles, all are craft based, with some occasional picks from travels which I couldn't resist - like the antique gong and bird cage which I bought at an exhibition from a Thai/ Indonesian old couple, who were putting up there lifelong collections for sale.

 

 

Most of the things you see around my house are my own designs and products collected over the last seven years ever since my association with crafts. I go with colors like green, beige, whites for home with little accents of brighter shades. For me, plants are a must and most of my decorations are botanical. 

Home for me is putting together familiar and inspiring things that make you comfortable and happy ! :)

Many thanks Anavila for the lovely home tour!

Looking forward to seeing you and your pretteh textiles in Delhi again soon :)

[All images copyright: Anavila Sindhu Misra and An Indian Summer] 

A home in New Delhi

Aneela Zeb Babar and I have known each other's virtual presence for a couple of years now. I love what and how she writes, and she enjoys the doses of pretty from An Indian Summer. Aneela moved to India recently, and one hot summer afternoon, we met at her new home in New Delhi. Over refreshing cups of Aneela's special chai, we had endless conversations, laughter, and a tour of her lovely home. I loved the fact that each little thing in her home has a story, a history, or a memory attached. And I won't even attempt to retell these stories to you, for I have the utterly charming and fabulously witty Aneela right here! Over to Aneela:

When you ask me about style and inspiration I guess for a long, long time it has been my mum, and my earlier houses were kind of an 'inspired tribute' to how she had done up her home but some time last year I think I finally grew more comfortable with who I was and now that I look back at the photographs over the year, I recognize how the blues and reds and a sense of eclectic are replacing the creams and beige and tapestries of before!

Ours is a family of Baba, Begum and a 3 year old. Sometime in September 2009, we packed up 'The House With The White Picket Fence' in Melbourne to live a life ‘unsettled’. Which meant that most of the paraphernalia of what constitutes as home was packed up in a garage and only the 'portable memories' made the cut in the boxes. The past three years has seen a lot of travel and homes combined with aspirations that my child grows up with some objects around him that have remained consistent and that we don’t exactly kill his sense of the aesthetic living in rented houses at times with someone else's furniture.

I think our home in Delhi now reflects the design demands of living out of a suitcase and combining a bit about who the father and me are and our journey so far....the 3 year old has quite an opinion about what makes it across the threshold too so the rooms combine some of his stories as well.

I thought that most of our purchases were random or something that the three of us could finally agree on…but I realize now that there is quite a method to our mad buying. Most of the artwork has a strong woman's voice. I know that a picture is worth a thousand words, but with our house rules of no TV…everything from the paintings, the bed spreads, the lamps, and of course the book shelves have to tell a hundred tales. I have quite a design crush on the art of kantha, also the Bengali jatra...so the three year old has spent many a summer afternoon poring over the bedspreads tracing stories with his finger about the embroidered ghouls, and camels,  parrots,  fish,  birds and butterflies.

I am guilty of being like many South Asians who dream in English but like to live the subaltern...so I give good business to Barefoot in Colombo especially their lovely painted ceramic pottery and the metal craft workers of Bangladesh who introduced me to their reading of Ganesha and Saraswati. Some things have not changed, I still cannot kick my family's addiction to carpets so there are a lot red carpets lying around the house bought in  Afghanistan and from Rawalpindi and Quetta in Pakistan! My husband is getting help for his penchant for lamps around the house.

We indulge in our penchant for nostalgia with wing back chairs, collecting faux antique writing desks, the odd gramophone , antique wall clock. My favorite child remains the Chicago Phone which amazingly still works.

  

When it comes to portable memories ...some things like my grandfather's war medals, my grand mum's trays, a grand aunt's milk jug, and father's books will always find a place in my suitcase. And there will always be a wall to accommodate my collection of political cartoons.

Aneela, shukriya (thank you) for sharing your lovely warm home with us!

You and I need to have another round of your fragrant chai soon :)

[All images copyright: An Indian Summer and Aneela Zeb Babar]

 

El Meu Coixi

I stumbled upon this quaint little store called El Meu Coixi during my web wanderings. El Meu Coixi means On My Pillow, and is filled with homely cuddly pillows and blankets. I love their feel good product portfolio and shots. Well, it was really the cat that clinched it for me! Look at the last pic in this post :). They have a store in Barcelona and also retail from an online shop. Looking at these images, I am already thinking autumn, folks :). How about you?

[All images: El Meu Coixi]

New and Happening!

Syed Ali Arif

Syed shared his striking art work and the heartwarming story of his journey into the world of art with me recently. An artist at heart, Syed went through the cycle of conventional education and 'regular' jobs, before he gave in to his passion of creating art. Self taught, with an artist friend as a mentor, Syed is now sought out by independent galleries and art lovers from across the world. Using various paint techniques and mediums, his work covers subjects like Indian mythology, religion, sexuality, performing arts, individuality and self identity. 

Take a look at Syed's art portfolio on his site and on his facebook page.

Urban Yogi brings Good Earth to Dubai!

 

Nisha Varman Shetty, the brainchild behind Urban Yogi, had reached out to me sometime back and shared her dreams and ideas of creating a luxury sustainable brand in Dubai. So with much delight, I announce the launch of Urban Yogi, and it's first project - a collaboration with the iconic Good Earth. Urban Yogi brings to Good Earth to Dubai via the 12th Women Exhibition currently happening at Dubai Ladies Club in Jumeirah. Click on the pic above for more details. 

And, a fabulous offer for all my readers in Dubai - Just mention that you are a reader of 'An Indian Summer' at Urban Yogi's stall, and get a 10% discount on all products! Happy Shopping!

 61c

A shared love for stationary and a passion for design is what led Supriya Kejriwal and Prashish More to join forces and create the paper brand 61c. Turning the mundane everyday paper products into magical, collectible items, the duo has launched an eclectic range of notepads, cards, gift packaging, wall art and other exciting paper accessories. I am love with their Panchatantra range of products featuring quintessential Indian motifs and design. 

Connect with 61c on facebook here and shop for their exquisite products right here. For a week, An Indian Summer readers can avail a special discount of INR 200 off on every purchase above INR 610 by using the code AIS61C when you shop. And if you 'like' their page on facebook, you can get an additional 6.1% discount! Just leave a note on their page to get the additional discount code. 

Urban Ladder

For Ashish and Rajiv, the inspiration to create a store that provided easy access to great furniture, came when they were building their own homes. They had a first hand experience of what a consumer would like for in furniture and what was missing in this area in the online retail segment. After months of research into design and manufacturing techniques, and sourcing unique quality products, the duo has set up UrbanLadder.com. With a range of well designed furniture and decor pieces, UrbanLadder.com promises to provide a seamless online retail experience. 

Check out the collection at UrbanLadder.com and connect with them on facebook right here.

[Al images copyright An Indian Summer and respective owners]