HOW WE BEGAN OUR JOURNEY
OUR ARTISANS
Sydney born Stephanie Ta is the Founder and Creative Director of Rooh Collective, a new sustainable women’s fashion label, based in Sydney.
Steph began her fashion journey in Mumbai in 2018 while she was visiting her fiancé Akshay’s family. Akshay’s mother runs a family owned studio in the heart of Mumbai and Steph paid it a visit on her trip. She was touched after meeting the artisans from this studio who welcomed her into their homes and shared their stories over a cup of handmade chai (Indian tea made with additional spices). These artisans have worked with this studio for over 25 years using the same techniques, with love for their art of making handmade garments from sustainable and organic materials.
Sadly, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on many jobs and industries around the world, as it has to the jobs of these artisans. Since then, Steph's vision has been to create jobs for these hardworking artisans and create something that women feel good in. Each design from Rooh is therefore carefully created with appreciation for a woman's form and inspired by her desire and love for travel, art and culture of these artisans.
Rooh Collective was born in order to pursue enlightened simplicity without compromising on product quality.
“We believe that beauty lies with the individual and our pieces are comfortable, allowing you to express yourself freely."
ETHICAL MANUFACTURING
Another important element for Rooh as a brand, business and fashion label, is that the fabrics we use have minimal impact on the environment. Sustainably sourced, 100% organic cotton has been used in our Spring / Summer 2020 collection and will be a staple fabric moving forward. Our aim is to produce pieces that will last, are made from high quality fabrics and express respect and compassion from seed to stitch. At Rooh, we will continue to search for initiatives that create jobs and use processes and materials that are sustainable.
“Our commitment to ethical practices are driven by my personal values, to understand the impact of our actions on our planet, to make changes in order to reduce our footprint and support people and culture.”
As part of the manufacturing process, we also ensure that we only partner with stitching units with similar values; we only source our fabrics from businesses where their employees work in comfortable and humane conditions and practise fair labour practices.
At Rooh Collective, we are proud to partner with a woman-owned studio in Mumbai, India, which has supported their artisans and their families from these textile focussed communities, for over 25 years.
When you support Rooh, you support these artisans that have been able to return to their jobs and help keep their traditional crafts alive, and we thank you for that.
"There is nothing more rewarding than seeing our pieces come together at the hands of these lovely and talented humans we get to work with”
