Buying Tips For Shop Owners: First we take tea.

By Mary Anne Wise

One of the first stops on our first buying trip to India was Sufiyan Khatri’s natural dye studio in the Kutch, a region located in far western Gujurat. We weren’t strangers, we’d met him previously while he was traveling around the US, selling his goods. We admired his beautiful hand block printed scarves and shawls and we’ve sold them steadily ever since. We knew his grandfather was credited with helping to revive natural dyes within the hand block printing artisan industry and we understood something of the magnitude of his accomplishment. And how the arc of that accomplishment now influences a younger generation. But nothing prepared us for stepping in to Sufiyan’s studio. Natural dyed cloth with intricate patterns that had been hand stamped using ancient wooden blocks flowed from the very walls- or so it seemed. We were positively vibrating with excitement as the possibilities for potential products raced through our minds. Picking up one cloth I’d ask: how much is this? and not waiting for an answer I’d grab another cloth and repeat the question. Pivoting around the room grabbing admiring touching asking while Sufiyan, smiling, put up his hands and said: “Madam, first we take tea, then we talk business.”