Interior of the Bandra studio with deep olive shelving holding ceramics and linen

Our Story

Built on the Belief That Value Is Not a Synonym for Cheap

The story of a small Mumbai shop that decided honest pricing was more interesting than endless discounts.

How The Studio Started

In 2019, founder Kavita Rao was renovating a two-room flat in Bandra West on a realistic budget. She wanted objects that looked considered and felt solid — not the decorative kitsch that floods most Indian marketplace apps, and not the imported luxury goods that assume a six-figure monthly income. After months of searching, she'd found a handful of makers producing genuinely good things at fair prices, but no single place that brought them together. The Studio started as a WhatsApp catalogue shared among twenty friends. By the end of 2020 it was a website; by 2022, a small warehouse operation shipping several hundred orders a month across India. The forest-cream palette — warm whites, deep olive, raw linen — was there from the first moodboard and has never changed, because it reflects what we believe a well-made home should feel like: grounded, warm, and quietly confident.

Founder Kavita Rao at a wooden desk surrounded by product samples

Our Sourcing Principles

Three rules that every supplier must meet before a product reaches the catalog.

Direct relationships only
We buy directly from makers — potters, weavers, woodworkers, small-batch producers — with no intermediary distributors. This keeps prices lower and means we can actually answer questions like 'who made this?' and 'what clay is it?'
Real-world durability testing
Every product is used in a member of our team's home for at least 30 days before listing. We wash it, spill on it, put it in the dishwasher if relevant, and leave it in the humidity that a Mumbai monsoon provides. It earns its place or it doesn't ship.
Fair maker margins
We share our pricing model with every supplier. Makers see exactly what we charge the end customer, which means no one feels shortchanged. Several of our longest-running makers have turned down larger distributors specifically because of this transparency.

“I'm a potter based in Jaipur and I've been supplying The Studio since 2021. In four years, every payment has arrived on time, the price we agreed has never been changed after the fact, and I've watched my pieces reach customers in Delhi, Bengaluru, and even Goa. That kind of reliability is genuinely unusual in this business.”
Ratan Sharma, Maker, Jaipur

The Team Behind the Catalog

There are six of us: Kavita handles buying and supplier relationships; Ankit manages the website, photography, and everything digital; Preethi runs customer service and has memorised every return policy clause so you don't have to; Dino and Sneha pack and dispatch every order from our Bandra West studio; and Rohit manages accounts and keeps the pricing model honest. We do not have a marketing department, a growth team, or a VP of anything. What we have is a shared preference for objects that earn their place and a commitment to charging exactly what they're worth — no more, no less.

The team packing orders in the Bandra West studio

Come and See for Yourself

Browse the catalog or drop us a message — we answer every query personally within one business day.

Shop now

Built on the Belief That Value Is Not a Synonym for Cheap

How The Studio Started

Our Sourcing Principles

Direct relationships only

Real-world durability testing

Fair maker margins

The Team Behind the Catalog

Come and See for Yourself