🌏 The Biodiversity Accelerator+ Company Feature: TORAJAMELO
Local, slow living... at scale.
TL;DR - For years, TORAJAMELO has harnessed the power of indigenous women across Indonesia to produce artisanal clothing and homeware with traditional weaving. Now, they are expanding their impact by partnering with other ethical brands to market and internationalize them for the corporate gifting and HoReCa sectors. Through their foundation, they’re also working to source their materials from a transparent regenerative farm, in collaboration with their local communities. Visit their store here to buy a high-quality gift for yourself or your loved ones that will last… the gift-giving season is just around the corner!
Fast fashion exploits workers. It’s pollutive. It lacks accountability. Even when widely circulated reports were released earlier this month about certain fast fashion brands, this isn’t a narrative we haven’t heard before.
Just as with “climate depression”, it doesn’t take much to get lost in the weeds of negativity when it comes to the behemoth that is the fashion industry. But for the team at TORAJAMELO, fashion offers a tale of hope for the 10 local communities they work across East Flores (Nusa Tenggara Timur) and Sulawesi, Indonesia.
When TORAJAMELO was founded, the vision was beautiful in its simplicity: preserve traditional weaving practices by equipping local women with the know how and the jobs to make high quality artisanal fabrics from it. That way, these women would have their own stable sources of income to supplement seasonal farm income, independent from their husbands and from agricultural land (which often needed to be converted from lush habitats). This provides them with the financial freedom to live their lives according to their own accords.
Like with many seemingly simple things, execution is the biggest challenge. But TORAJAMELO managed to do it, providing over 1,100 women with jobs and increasing their incomes by 550% on average.
Now, they’re taking that to scale.
👩🏻🌾 From farm to fashion, and more 👗
What’s next for a team that is looking to both deepen and broaden their impact for communities like the one in Indonesia?
👉🏽 Leveraging from their existing experience in marketing internationally and in managing supply chain logistics (CEO Aparna Saxena has worked for firms like DHL, Alibaba, and Angels of Impact), TORAJAMELO is launching a new platform called AHANA - an ethical e-retailer that packages a variety of goods to meet the needs of hotels, event organisers, and corporates with corporate gifting programmes who are looking to meet their consumers demand for ethical sourcing. TORAJAMELO is just one of the brands that will be offered on the AHANA platform, which will partner to bring onboard a series of like-minded local brands which are focused on environmental, social, and cultural sustainability, including one which is using innovative sustainable alternative like mushroom leather.
👉🏽 TORAJAMELO is looking to move beyond the imported fabrics and textiles which currently form a large majority of their raw materials, towards more sustainably-sourced threads. Through their foundation arm, they are currently in the development stages of establishing a 1,000-hectare regenerative agriculture agroforestry plot in Sulawesi, which they project will supply at least 50% of TORAJAMELO’s inputs (e.g. yarns and natural dyes). They’ve already completed their feasibility study of the local community and political, as well as preliminary geographical mapping for a 5-hectare pilot. They are also in collaboration with fibre experts from the Natural Fibre Council and seed experts from government agencies to aid in their planning work.
🙌🏽 Socially and environmentally responsible
TORAJAMELO gives women a sense of control and agency in a patriarchal society where they have no right to land. They’re preserving local cultural weaving practices which are at risk due to the imposition of Javanese batik. They’re sharing their learning and expertise with other hyperlocal brands. And they’re moving upstream to improve the biodiversity footprint of their materials.
As consumers become more conscious about where the clothes they wear come from (with Shopify’s future of commerce report stating that 53% of consumers prefer green or sustainable products and 75% say they would pay more for environmentally friendly products), we’re looking forward to seeing what the future has in store for TORAJAMELO. They are one of the few who are walking the talk when it comes to empowering indigenous communities, and we are glad to have supported them through the Biodiversity Accelerator+.
Want to learn more? Check out the TORAJAMELO website, Linkedin, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok for more updates. Also be sure to read their feature on The Jakarta Post!