KOCHI: Longing to dress up your interiors with European style home decor? Everything for your home starting from napkins to bed sheets is available at this one stop shop. Village shop which sells only home décor is conducting their seasonal fair at their outlet in Ravipuram in Kochi. What started in a small garage has now spread out to places in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Beena Valsaraj says, “ It all started in 1987 when I was married to a family where my husband had a textile exporting business. I was always attracted to the colours and dyes used in the garments. This got me interested and I started my own brand. I had one tailor and we both used to cut and make different trending designs.” In those days, they used to conduct exhibitions of their handloom products once in a year.
Kannur-based Village Shop has around 15 girls working there and everything for a home is available at attractive price ranges. They use materials in cotton and silk and they design their outfits based on the latest trends and designs. They used to do handloom but now they rely on machines to make their work easier. Beena says, “We buy the yarn and then dye it into our fashion. Cushion covers, bed sheets, napkins are also made from here. We process our products and make it into different designs.”
The discount sale is held every year and they have conducted exhibitions in places such as Nagercoil, Coorg, Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam. Beena says, “We have customers from everywhere especially from Coorg as they prefer to deck their homes with different coloured napkins, cushion covers, fridge handle, quilts for King size beds. The price ranges from Rs 140 to Rs 4,000. Since we have manufacturers, we are able to sell it at these prices.”
Besides employing girls from her neighbourhood, Beena is also giving training to girls who come from the National Institute of Fashion Technology who come to do their project works. There are designer bath towels with embroideries and batik prints, all priced to suit every purse including designer Kurtis and night wears.Village shop has own designer units and mills at Kannur district in Kerala and retail outlet at Kochi. The collections, less said, are utterly tempting in design, quality and printing. You can also place orders for custom designs that suit your taste.