After earning a graduate degree in design, Indie Ella's founder Jayna Lamb moved from Amsterdam to the Indian state of Goa, where the idea for this unique clothing line was born. Already working with local tailors on her cotton dress designs, she found inspiration with a young lady's recycled sari garments in the marketplace where she sold her cotton designs. She bought a bundle of the exotic recycled saris and went to work creating a second life for the beautiful material in the form of dresses. Success came quickly as her tiny stall in the night market tripled in size over four months. Jayna spent the next two years bringing her designs to London, Barcelona, Ibiza and back to Amsterdam. Soon growing homesick, she revisited her birthplace in Texas. She ventured to see if the brand would be received as well in her home country. To her pleasant surprise, within three weeks, she received her largest order ever. This prompted the up and coming designer to make a permanent return to the States. Over 120 boutiques across the United States carry Indie Ella, with the number of shops hoping to carry Jayna's outstanding bohemian designs growing every season.
The uniquely lovely silk sari's are sourced from Bangalore and they are only worn once. You see, it is customary for the affluent women of Bangalore to attend a plethora of social functions every year, sometimes up to one hundred and fifty or more. When they do so, it is very uncouth to ever be seen in the same sari twice, thus they must dawn new ones for each event. While that may not be a practice we at Indie Ella support, we certainly look to bring these beautiful garments a second life by making them in to one of Jayna's exceptional designs.
Buying the Indie Ella brand
Indie Ella does more than just recycle thousands of 100% silk sari's in to stunning garments and using other upcycled fabrics for many of it's bags. When you buy Indie Ella, you can rest assured you are getting products made and produced in a conscious way. Most of our manufacturing is done from Fair Trade certified companies and for those smaller cottage industry manufactures that can't afford the certification, we at Indie Ella personally inspect the small companies to make sure they meet all of the Fair Trade standards of good, clean and safe work environments and that they pay their workers a living wage. Be sure to check each product page for specific information the product you are buying. Beyond the manufacturing, Indie Ella excels in the recycling of the heaps of packaging involved with garnment industy. And we pay a little extra so that all of our websites are hosted on servers powered by green wind energy!
Other brands represented on Indie Ella
Indie Ella looks to partner with other brands that have a desire to be conscious in their practices as well. Please check the details category on each product to learn about each brands efforts.