about us
For the past 20 years, we have been passionately collaborating with the most sustainable & progressive makers, designers, producers & craftspeople we can find
How it all began
I love India, I am completely hooked. I fell in love with her in 1999, during my first trip. It’s the streets, it’s the land, it’s her smell, her touch, her joy. It’s the playfulness, the sacredness. It’s the totality of her. She awoke my longing for the divine, something I always knew, but had slowly forgotten.
“Shakti is the divine feminine in our creation, the power to act, to create, another word for the feminine energy that permeates through everything—every plant, every microbe, every person”
‘The power to act’ was calling as we felt the weight of inequality and the injustices that our modern world deemed as a normal capitalist society
Hungry to explore India’s ancient teachings, I studied Ayurveda and attended a course with Vandana Shiva, ‘Earth, Spirit and Activism’ in a remote village near Rishikesh. In those Himalayan foothills, it all changed and there the vision of ‘Shakti” was born.
Completely captivated by the world of Indian craft and the authenticity in the organic subsistence farmers who retained the traditions of Indian culture, I started to connect with skilled craftspeople who needed to supplement their farming livelihoods. I finally returned laden with their wares wishing deeply to share the joy, but feeling deeply misplaced in a ‘normal’ western culture. ‘Shakti’ enabled us to somehow complete the circle - where India’s gifts, both physical and spiritual, could be shared and deeply honoured. We could give something back.
We returned each year, to India and Nepal, working with WFTO groups and independent craftspeople, sharing stories back in the UK, selling at markets and festivals, living in a yurt on a land project and keeping everything as simple as possible. Our passion was to support as many projects as we could including ‘Shakti Nepal’, an educational charity we helped initiate and which continues to thrive today.
Shakti wanted to grow, and in 2004 we opened our first high street store, Shakti Man on the Isle of Man. We travelled each year discovering fair trade projects and small independent producer partners, living our passion to collaborate and create. Shakti kept on growing, expanding into bigger stores. Every door we knocked on swung open, and she thrived for 18 years. She had become my whole life. But one day, I woke up and realised I was too weary to carry her stories so far and wide. I had lived and breathed her each moment and I could not take another step. We shut up shop and hibernated, yearning for simplicity once again.
When I awoke, I remembered how much I loved working alongside magical people who make things happen, celebrating the conscious creative collective, and being a tiny part of sustaining a gentle world where authenticity and heart led is the norm in how we approach our ‘modern western world’.
Today, it’s all about celebration. We’re no longer trying to right any wrong. We’re proud to present a new, significantly smaller platform, away from the high street. Here we bring you the joy from those magical makers, who passionately create with heart, with colour, with beauty, items with love, integrity and respect for our wonderful, natural and vibrant world.
We can walk the woods and the rivers. Life is simple once again, and ‘Shakti’ is still by my side. As we gently walk the path, we will endeavour to keep exploring ourselves and our world, and bring you the beauty that we find.
Thanks for joining us.
Om Shakti
“Love is the bridge between you and everything”