ABOUT
Wray Crafted is a slow & ethical fashion label that celebrates the rich culture, heritage and artisan craft of India. Wray Crafted produces their designs in limited batches alongside artisan communities. They choose not to produce in a factory to preserve traditional techniques and skills, while still creating modern, wearable pieces.
IMPACT
People
Wray Crafted’s designs are made by a family business with a community network of embroiderers. The brand works very closely with them every step of the way. From sourcing to costing in order to ensure fair pricing, working collaboratively from cutting to stitching, to designing embroidery and picking colours together over cups of chai in their homes. The family business they work with is headed by Moti, a Master Patternmaker for 10 years at a women’s social enterprise, and his wife, Manoharee. He has established a community of embroiderers, who can work from their choice of location. Unlike factories where makers are paid only upon completion, Wray Crafted pays 50-75% upfront, and wages are decided on a mutual agreement based on the time taken and skill level.
Product
The brand sources their fabrics from their printers in a nearby village, where they sometimes find hidden forgotten gems leftover from previous buyers and give them new life. This results in some one-off colourways like the Rue Rose. Other materials are sourced from known connections, so they know who and where they’re purchasing from. As they are close to their producers, they can act quickly when it comes to making design decisions and troubleshooting issues and vastly shortens the typical design & production timeline. Constantly working directly with producers also helps them to gain valuable feedback to improve. They can then further reduce organisational clutter and work on initiatives to reduce waste together.
Packaging
Wray Crafted uses leftover fabric from each production run to make garment bags and use fabric scraps to attach the hang tags. This is a good compromise as customers can still receive their items nicely packaged and then can easily reuse the packaging it comes in. While they currently still use plastic mailers for shipping individual orders, the brand doesn’t use single-use plastic packaging for items. They transport their items in their cloth garments bags to keep them clean and dust-free.
Planet
While the brand acknowledges the pros and cons of every material, Wray Crafted commits to avoiding synthetic textiles. This is because the chemical composition of synthetic materials heavily impacts the environment and the communities that live in them. The brand also has minimal waste in mind when designing and producing. They carefully consider each production run to ensure there is just enough fabric meterage. Additionally, they try to fit any additional styles into the leftover fabric, with everything else going into the packaging. Wray Crafted runs a small batch model with the focus on longevity where they make limited pieces of each style. This allows them to provide customers with a range of products but helps control waste created by unsold inventory. The makers finish all the garments with french seams for durability, with full lining whenever possible so the embroidery has an added layer of protection.
Principles
As a brand, Wray Crafted’s biggest beliefs are ethical production, community building, advocating slow fashion and traditional craft. The team works alongside talented makers and producers, with a strong personal connection and mutual respect. Instead of telling the artisans what to produce, they learn and discuss the craft as a collaborative effort. The brand embeds a sense of community into the foundation of Wray Crafted. The team knows the people they work with, and understand how craft benefits the communities around them. With the community structure, women makers don’t have to leave their home villages to move into big garment production cities. Rather, they can earn income where they are, and remain close to their loved ones. Finally, Wray Crafted wants to provide an accessible ethical option to consumers by offering 6 capsule collections annually.