How a 57-year-old design consultant built a fair-trade jute brand with rural women in India

Who built it, and what they built

Jhumkee Iyengar started Ohrna at age 57, a sustainable lifestyle brand selling handmade bags, sleeves, and pouches that combine jute with natural fabrics and Kantha embroidery. The products are made by rural women in India who are trained for free, given materials, and paid to work from home.

The brand sells to individual customers, boutiques, and wholesalers, with a customer base spread across the US, India, and Germany. Second-year revenue was around $12,000, and roughly 15 women had been trained and employed at the time of writing.

The name Ohrna means 'veil' in Bengali, reflecting the founder's roots in Bengal, where both jute and the Kantha embroidery style originate. The venture was framed around four goals: helping rural women earn from home, preserving traditional crafts, using sustainable materials, and presenting Indian craft to a global audience.

Where the idea came from

Iyengar spent more than three decades in human-centered product design, running her own consulting practice, teaching for the LUMA Institute, and serving as adjunct faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology. In 2010 she began running design thinking workshops for rural teens in India, which convinced her that anyone can design for their own context given the right tools.

Her rural work led her to believe that women lacking financial independence have no voice, and that village women, held back by little schooling and social conventions, frequently cannot earn. Having picked up sewing from a professional tailor in her youth, she selected it as a field within the women's comfort zone.