Our Story

Loom & Lore is founded by Aparna Rajagopalan. An alumna of NIFT and NID, India, she has over eighteen years of experience in design research and strategy, studying how and why people choose what they buy.

As a designer, she began to question her role in what gets made and the waste it creates. This led her to work with artisanal deadstock, clothing that had been made but remained unsold, straight from weavers.

This early work was driven by a desire to support Indian craft more directly. But conversations with both weavers and customers revealed a gap: weavers want their looms to keep running, and craft survives only when people choose to wear it.

She began sharing what makes Indian textiles so intelligent on Instagram. The response was immediate, with her videos reaching over 2.9 million views, revealing a clear appetite for this way of seeing.

The next question was how to translate that into clothing. She moved away from deadstock and focused on understanding customers more closely. They don’t wear artisanal clothing simply because it is handmade - they wear it because of how it feels.

That shift shaped Loom & Lore - focusing on creating contemporary womenswear that reveals more the closer you look. Pieces that people notice and ask about.