A Woven Life

Jenny Housego is a textile historian, designer and co-founder of Kashmir Loom. She has helped inspire a generation of Indian craftspersons to raise their skills to new heights of creativity and excellence. During her over three decades in India, she has ventured across the country to work with weavers and embroiderers to forge new ways of combining their traditional craftsmanship with contemporary designs. She also co-founded the successful brand Shades of India. Her work in Indian textiles added to India’s place on the world’s luxury map. Also active in numerous social projects in India, Jenny has not only revived ancient weaving techniques that had all-but disappeared, she also ensured the livelihoods of families from Haryana to Kashmir and West Bengal. She is the author of Tribal Rugs: An Introduction to the Weaving of the Tribes of Iran and of Bridal Durries of India. Jenny lives in Delhi and is often found at museums or brunching with her gang.

Maya Mirchandani is an award-winning Indian journalist with interests in Indian Foreign Policy, South Asia, and identity conflicts. She moved to research and teaching after over two decades with NDTV India. She teaches Media Studies at Ashoka University and is a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. As a journalist, Maya survived a suicide bomb attack at President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s election rally in 1999; reported on 9/11 as the planes hit the World Trade Center in New York; survived pro-government mobs attacking the media during the Anti-Mubarak protests in Cairo, Egypt. From Moscow to Washington DC, Cairo to Islamabad, Freetown, Sierra Leone to Rangoon, and several places in between, Maya has traveled extensively, always in search of a good story to tell.