Summer Internsip Mother Earth

Summer Internship

Mother Earth Akash Agarwal 061172500001 2011-2015

Internship Certiď€ cate

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Acknowledgement I would like to thank Mr. Ravikumar, CCTD Bangalore, for constantly guiding me through my 2 month Internship process at Mother Earth/Industree Crafts Pvt Ltd. Without his guidance this project wouldnt have been complete. I would also like to thank Ms. Neelima Mishra, Asst. designer (apparel), for providing constant mentorship throughout my entire internship period of 8 weeks at Mother Earth.

I would also like to thank Mr. Nihal Peters, Category Head, Mother Earth for giving me this oppertunity to be a part of Mother Earth Thank You

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Table of contents 9 11 13 14 19 21 23 26 35 37

Introduction Philosophy Their story Company model Sales channel Product categories Manufacturing process What I did at Mother Earth Conclusion Bibliography

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Introduction Industree Crafts started out in 1994 as a result of Neelam Chhiber along with social investor Gita Ram and co-founder Poonam Bir Kasturi, Chhiber set up the company as a private limited rm in 1994, selling contemporary products, mainly home accessories, designed by them but made in villages. They worked through established NGOs and self-help groups, sold through Industreebranded stores, the rst one opened in 1996 in Malleshwaram Bangalore. Industree was into exports for the rst six years and was successful in exporting products made with natural bre as it was the only such player.

Industree is a hybrid social entreprise based in Bangalore supporting livelihoods of rural producers and agricultural workers all over the country. They produce contemporary items using raw materials and traditional craft techniques. Industree connects two ends of the spectrum - the producer and the market, for this there are two entities , Industree Crafts pvt ltd with the Mother Earth brand and Industree Crafts Foundation.

Industree Crafts Foundation was set up in the year 2000 to concentrate it's work with rural producers on developing design, technical and skill initiatives in the natural bre sector. The pioneering work focused on creating considerable value addition for agricultural by-products and other natural bres in terms of product diversication, design, simplication of labour and time intensive process.

Mother Earth is a tasteful lifestyle brand for people with an Indian design sense. Mother Earth is one of the few lifestyle brands that represent Indian designs in a contemporary sense. With investment from Future Ventures, Mother Earth scaled up and broadened its products categories to include fashion, food (organic and natural) and a wider range of home linen as well as a large range of home decor, furniture and gifts.

In 2009, Mother Earth opened its 11,000 sq ft large agship store in Bangalore and has now expanded into multiple sales channels selling its products via multi-brand outlets, franchisees, online exports and television, in addition to its own six stores.

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Philosophy Mother Earth believes in providing great quality goods while nurturing the environment and building on the strengths of marginalized rural communities to create sustainable livelihoods and overall prosperity.

Its mission is to enhance and create secure artisanal livelihood through socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.

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Their Story Neelam Chibber and Gita Ram founded Industree/Mother Earth in 1994. Shunning the established factory method of production, the company retraces India's traditional crafts and enables artisan communities in the hinterland to get their due.

A product designer from NID Ahmedabad, Neelam Chibber chose to work in artisan-based production as she believed the manufacturing space in India was a rip-off of western designs. "The Indian system of production was highly evolved but since Independence, nobody really tried to modernise traditional Indian manufacturing," she elaborates. That gave her the impetus in co-found Industree /Mother Earth along with Gita Ram, a secretary of the Crafts Council of India with a history of voluntary service in the crafts sector.

Though Chibber did her industrial training at Nikitasha (stove-makers of yore), she couldn't nd "that human connection with producers". She detested the factory method all the more as she had stayed in weavers' homes during her days at NID. Chibber was always keen to explore the traditional Indian space in its purity. So she went to Bastar, which was relatively "untouched by modern forces", and noticed that the producer had a direct link to the consumer. That observation formed the basic ethos of her work -that artisans are owners of micro-enterprises and should be given their creative space to produce.

Industree/Mother Earth incubates self-help groups of artisans by linking them up with access to capitals (banks) and assuring them with orders. "We give them access to better designs and markets and make money on the margins," claims Chibber. She adds that margins are anywhere between twice or thrice the sourcing fee.

In 2006-07, when there was a need to scale up and Chibber and Ram realised that they didn't have the tools to do so. The duo approached Kishore Biyani of Future Group to invest in the venture, besides scouting for like-minded talent. So the venture's rst CEO was RS Rekhi, an IRMA alumnus who used to head the eastern region ops for Pantaloons. Biyani had invested in Chibber's husband Jacob Mathew's company Idiom in 2005. That's how Chibber & Co. got in touch with their Future.

Today, Future Ventures owns 60% of Industree/Mother Earth, which will have a turnover of Rs 15 crore this scal. It is targeting Rs 30 crore next scal through sales from its own retail stores apart from shop-in-shops, wholesalers, ecommerce websites and the export market. So far, $1 million (Rs 5 crore) worth of investment has come in from the Grassroots Business Fund of the World Bank last year, besides Rs 12 crore from Future Ventures.

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Organogram as of dec 2012

Company Model Industree's model focuses on sustainability, equity, empowerment and ownership of artisans is the hallmark of strategic decisions. Industree foresees itself as a facilitator in developing producer owned micro enterprises

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Industree/Mother Earth is a hybrid social entrepreneurship based in Bangalore supporting livelihoods of rural producers and agricultural workers all over the country producing contemporary items using raw materials that is natural in most cases. Industree connects two ends of the spectrum - the producer and the market, for this there are two entities functioning.

Industree Crafts Foundation (ICF) is the ‘not for prot’ entity working on building up the production base and enabling agricultural workers and artisans to become owners of their enterprises.

Industree Crafts Private Limited (ICPL) is the ‘for prot’ entity which focuses on domestic retail and exports. The two working in tandem seek to provide sustainable livelihoods for the vast majority of neglected rural producers and artisanal population.

ICF believes that artisanal investment in production is necessary to create a bottom-up organization ensuring that artisans and farmers become owners of their enterprise and gradually take charge of intervening layers of external management, supervision and eventually even design. This builds sustainability and encourages future generations interested in their traditional occupations.

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Sales channels Available across multiple options, Mother Earth products can be purchased from their various agship stores, shop in shop outlets, franchise outlets and select ecommerce websites.

1.) Flagship store - Bangalore(3) Mysore(1) Mumbai(1) Pune(1) Kolkatta(1) 2.) Shop-in-Shop Outlets - Central, Homestop, Shopper stop, Hypercity, Brand factory, Cupon, Hometown and megamart 3.) Franchise outlets - Bangalore(3) 4.) Ecommerce - Homeshop 18, Myntra, Jabong, Flipkart, Fashionara, Giftingnation

Mother Earth is rapidly expanding its presence in tier 2 cities as well with plans of expansion with more shop in shop store options.

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Product Categories Mother Earth has a huge product range with categories broadly classiď€ ed into 2, home and apparel. It constantly ideates on new product designs and is ever so expanding its product ranges season after season. As with any brand mother earth creates stories and themes each season which are followed by both its divisions giving it a unique look when compared to other brands.

Mother Earth has a very vast product range and aims to deliver supreme quality amongst each product it offers and never fails to follow its motto of organic and sustainable living.

A broad division of each of their product categories is given below.

1.) Apparel o) Menswear o) Womenswear 2.) Home o) Furniture o) Gift and Decor o) Home Linen o) Crockery o) Natural ď€ ber

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Manufacturing Process

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From 1 to 10 - From fabric to garment and all the steps involved in it. Steps include cutting, stitching, quality check, ironing and packing and warehousing

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Mother Earth manufactures all its products at its HSR facility. The building contains the warehouse, Stockroom, Production oor and the Design ofce. The production process begins with the design Specication handed over by the Category designers in the form of a tech pack this sheet contains all the vital details abt the fabrics used and the trims along with all other specications that need to be followed. In case the fabric required isn’t available then there is an order placed for said fabric.

For the apparel division the fabric is rst handed over to the Master Patter maker who handles the entire sampling process. He is incharge of cutting the rst patterns that would be required to create the rst samples. He has 5 stitching machines under him that handle all the sampling for the various collections made. The samples need to get aproval from the head designer in order for them to be further sent for production. The designer needs to approve all the changes that need to be made for the same in case there are any.

Once the initial samples are approved then actual production begins. The rst stage is to procure the desired amount of fabric from the warehouse. In case that fabric is in shortage then further orders are placed for it. Once the fabrics are procured they are layed on the cutting table, layer by layer, and then the desired patterns are placed over it depending on the placing for the end result.

Each cut pattern is individually numbered in order for it to correspond with the other pieces for it end up becoming the nal garment. The cut patterns are the bundled together and given to each of the 4 divisions on the production oor. Each division is comprising of 20 machines that work together to make all the garments for Mother Earth.

The next stage comprises of the rst round of quality checks where any loose bres and the numbering stickers are removed. once these are checked they are further subjected to another round of checking where the entire garment is checked for any kind of errors. Once the garment has passed the quality check it is sent for ironing and tagging and the packed in the garment bags and sent to the stock room. As and when there is a need for the nished product it is dispatched to various outlets.

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What I did at Mother Earth?

I joined mother earth towards the end of May, while they were busy working hard for their summer collection for 2015. I was assigned a theme board labelled INDIGO. The indigo theme is Mother Earth’s core theme each season. This is and the Bagru theme are always present each time they present a new collection.

I was handed over the initial Mood board, and was asked to develop prints and nd/make silhouettes that I would like to have for this collection. The First thing that I was asked to do was conduct a small market survey to understand the scenario of the Indian ethnic market. The print patter direction was derived by Geometry and they wanted compositions and prints to be created using just dots. Earlier variations of the prints that I developed for them ranged from Jaal designs, Ogee Designs, Lateral designs that could be used fora yolk detail or various trims. I also had to develop the corresponding borders for each print keeping in mind that the end collection needed to be correlated giving form to a nal story.

One of the key points that I had to work around was that all the prints were going to be developed using Hand Block Print Technique using resist dye processes using traditional methods. The following pages contain my work for the same including the mood board, silhouettes that I made and the ones I sourced and the nal prints that were selected Other than the Indigo project I was handed a lot of research projects for their future collections for AW 15. I was asked to go for a market survey to understand the different trends for the ethnic market and spot them. and provide information for their I-spy report(Market Reserch). I was also asked to make a report on the forecasting trends for AW 15 Whic would help them get clarity on future trends.

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Mood Board

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Conclusion This internship has given me a great insight into how the industry works, I have learnt a lot from my 8 weeks at the job. Learnt the manufacturing process, and how the industry works, the organisation structure and how each department has a key role to play. I have also realised that there is a process that is followed and have learnt that all the process and ow taught to me at NIFT came in handy at the industry. My internship has taught me the entire process of how a design process plays such a key role to create the end result and that there is a way to go about it and it needs to be approved by many people for the ď€ nal approval.

This Internship has taught me a lot and has inspired me to someday do something like Mother Earth and run my own ď€ rm.

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Bibliography www.motherearth.co.in www.industree.org.in www.facebook.com/motherearth

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