Stories of the Soil brings craft from the world to Dubai

It takes time, diligence and a whole lot of practise to become a good artisan. Often, these mastersmiths are holed up in small, remote villages that aren’t so easy to access. To be good enough to sell your wares is another challenge, as is to get a fair price for what you create. Fortunately, there are those who make it their business to head into these oft-ignored areas and bring the one-of-a-kind pieces to the world. And one such UAE-based store that does this is Stories of the Soil.

“Stories of the Soil was established about two-and-a-half years ago,” says co-founder Ayesha Imtiaz. She is one of the three women – the others being Saba Nadeem and Maleha Jaffer Mahmood – who came together to form the company. “We met through a mutual friend. And we came up with this idea of promoting and supporting artisans from across the globe.”

All three women hail from different parts of Pakistan and have varied backgrounds that somehow mesh together and work for their firm. Maleha has a business and finance background, Ayesha is an entrepreneur with an advertising and marketing firm, and Saba is the creative genius behind the product packaging ideas.

“The platform is all about promoting and supporting handcrafted, sustainable products, which are produced in various countries, and we bring them here to the people of Dubai,” she adds.

So how do three women go about buying goods from across the world? It begins with a sort of crowdsourcing.

“We have friends and customers who are equally passionate about our products. And they are our eyes and ears at times. So, for example, someone went to Jordan, and she took pictures of these lovely handmade things. And she said, ‘Why don't you connect with them?’ ,” says Maleha.

The journey hasn’t been an easy one and while the company has an Instagram page and a website, it’s mostly run through word-of-mouth conversation and referrals. “The challenges so far have been like, we have been trying to tie up with logistics firms [but things are quite expensive]. Like, even if you want to hire a small kiosk in a mall with good footfall, you have to pay a big amount. And for these products, the profit margins are not very high,“ says Ayesha.

The ultimate dream is to have a brick-and-mortar store filled to the brim with treasures from around the globe. “We would really like to overcome these challenges, and for Stories of the Soil to turn out to be like very profitable, self sustainable venture for us,” she adds.

The trio focuses on functional home wear and fashion wear. “Most of our items are for gifting, for which people have a budget, so we keep that price point in mind also. We keep our items priced at Dh200-300, and we curate and we bring a collection which is unique to Dubai,” says Maleha.

That means a lot of running around and not just at the source. It requires market research and a constant eye on competition. “We get things that are not available in Global Village, or Meena Bazaar,” says Maleha, adding, “and we keep experimenting with our portfolio.”

A recent line that gave the firm some trouble was made of bird baths. “Dubai has an outdoor life for six-seven months now starting from October to April, and we got some handcrafted Hala pottery from a place in Pakistan. Those were really very well received, but the logistics were really challenging,” says Aisha. And because they were fragile they suffered damage.

However, generally things that are ‘hurt’ en route to Dubai are not thrown away; they are repaired. “We use the Japanese art of kintsugi, which uses gold leaf or gold paint to repair any cracks,” explains Aisha. “Our co-founder Saba is good with these types of creative endevours.”

The women are also passionate about connecting local artisans with international markets that may appreciate their artwork. “In 2005, there was a massive earthquake in Islamabad and a lot of people got injured. So this organisation called Paper Miracles was born and they have the paraplegic women working for them. These women make paper necklaces, and it gives them a source of livelihood, it gives them a purpose. And that's one of the organisations that we are supporting by bringing their necklaces here and talking about them and promoting them and raising awareness about them. So, we feel very inspired by that,” says Maleha.

• Lifestyle