Our Story
Our story began in 2010 with a community who came together around the age-old art forms of spinning, weaving and block printing in the small rural town of Rajpur, nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. Our vision; to be a different kind of business – a conduit for opportunities in underserved communities, putting people over profit and bringing their hand made products to people across the world with fairness, equality and justice.
Today our handmade bags are loved by women all over the world, but our dream remains the same - to create products that are good for people and kind to our planet, proudly and unfailingly made by hand.
Handmade slowly & ethically
Every JOYN bag is handcrafted slowly and ethically from our studio in the Himalayas. We choose not to mass produce but work in small batches with each bag going through many stages as raw materials take shape in the hands of our makers. Hand making in this way may be slower, but our commitment is to people over profit and this ‘purposeful inefficiency’ enables us to create more living wage work for more people.
Community manufacturing
We are proud to be one of the few fashion brands that does its manufacturing in house. We don’t out source to factories, but make every bag from our own studio. This gives us true transparency on how our products are made. It also ensures we can commit to the wellbeing of our growing community of makers while creating a work environment with community at its heart.
Fair living wages
Every order creates hours of above living wage work. We value the skilled work of our makers and to ensure our people are paid fairly, each year we reevaluate the local cost of living to go above and beyond – currently a JOYN salary is 15% above the local living wage. Alongside this we are committed to our makers wellbeing and provide paid maternity leave, free child care, free healthy meals each day, subsidised education for families and more.
Transparency & Connection
Each bag carries the signature of its maker because everyone deserves to know where their products come from. We believe This creates true connection to the things we own – when you know who made your products, how they were made and what it means to the maker to see them in your hands, that product becomes not just a bag, but something to treasure forever.
