Our Company
Mehera Shaw, a small-scale, ethical fashion house, was founded in 1999 by Mark and Shari Keller, and specializes in natural fiber/eco-friendly clothing, in upmarket, vibrant, feminine styles. Mehera Shaw produces several complete collections each year, designed by Shari, to create full wardrobes of coordinating separates for each season.
Mehera Shaw is both an American company and an Indian company and is a member of the Fair Trade Federation in the US. Mehera Shaw Pvt. Ltd. is our production company located in Jaipur, India, which operates according to fair trade standards. Our production company in India also wholesales and exports Mehera Shaw clothing as well as working with other designers. All aspects of design and production are handled by Mark and Shari in conjunction with our studio staff in Jaipur, India. Mehera Shaw contracts directly with village artisans for the sourcing of our textile crafts; we incorporate traditional artisan crafts, such as hand block printing, embroidery, and hand looming, in most of our designs. All of our garments are cut and stitched “in house” at couture standards.
All of our employees in India are guaranteed top wages, commensurate with their high level of skill, and also receive full medical coverage, which extends to their entire families.
environmental practices
Mehera Shaw adheres to environmentally positive production practices; we use only natural fibers, cotton, wool, and silk. All of our dyes are AZO free; many of them are completely vegetable based, and made according to traditional recipes. We have recently begun a serious process of switching to GOTS certified organic cotton which has been dyed using only herbal treatments: no bleach, no peroxide, no mordants, no formaldehyde, no optical brighteners. We hope we can offer this cotton as the primary fabric in most of collections within the next 2 years. To date, when organic cotton is not available, we use cloth that has not been processed after looming, thus by-passing the addition of chemical additives that are normally present in commercially loomed cotton. Many of our garments are made of “khadi”, which is to say, cotton, wool, or silk that has been spun and loomed by hand without the use of electricity. The khadi industry was founded by Mahatma Gandhi with the emphasis on giving Indian villagers a path to self-sufficiency. Mehera Shaw is, and will continue to be, an enthusiastic and appreciative, supporter of the khadi movement.